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Gift  of  Seymour  B.  Durst  Old  York  Library 


I 


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in  2014 


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PROOFS  FOR  WORKINGMEN 


OF 


THE  MONARCHIC  AND  ARISTOCRATIC  DESIGNS  OF 
THE  SOUTHERN  CONSPIRATORS  AND  THEIR 
NORTHERN  ALLIES. 


The  main  object  of  the  war  for  the  Union  is  to  vindicate  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  the  laboring  classes  of  our  country, 
against  the  treacherous  and  despotic  designs  of  an  armed  Con- 
federacy of  monarchists  and  aristocrats.  In  the  loyal  States 
there  are  many  disloyal  men,  who  sympathize  with  the  aims 
of  these  anti-Republican  traitors,  and  are  in  secret  league  with 
them.  Their  plan  is  to  divide,  subdivide,  and  distract  the 
country,  and  then  declare  for  a  monarchy,  as  the  only  refuge 
from  anarchy  or  military  despotism.  Should  they  succeed, 
direful  would  be  the  results  to  the  great  body  of  the  people, 
and  especially  to  the  working  man.  The  substitution  of  a 
monarchy  for  our  Republic,  would  produce  political  and  social 
changes,  of  which  no  one  can  form  an  adequate  conception,  who 
has  not  had  the  opportunity  of  comparing  our  Government 
with  the  monarchies  of  the  old  world.  There  would  be  privileged 
orders.  There  would  be  an  established  church,  supported  by 
legal  taxation.  The  £Ujlit  of  voting  would  be  restricted  to  the 
nobility  and  gentry.  The  free  school  system  would  be  abolished. 
The  poor  whites  would  be  amalgamated  with  the  negroes,  and 
both  would  be  reduced  to  slavery. 

Some  of  our  brother  laboring  men  clearly  perceive  this  to  be 
the  general  programme  of  the  traitors.  If  all  could  see  it,  the 
nefarious  scheme  would  be  instantly  exploded.  There  would 
be  no  need  of  a  draft  for  soldiers,  and  no  need  of  large  bounties 
for  volunteers.  They  would  neither  wait  to  be  drafted,  nor 
paid,  but  would  up  together,  saying,  "  Show  us  the  way  to  the 
infernal  conspirators  against  our  political  equality  and  the 
free  manhood  of  our  children,  and  we  will  throw  ourselves 
upon  and  crush  them  as  the  mountain  avalanche  crushes  all 
things  human  in  its  course."  Let  the  following  proof  from 
Southern  lips  and  pens  be  carefully  considered : 


I. — THE  PECULIAR  STRUCTURE  *0F  THE  CONFEDERATE  CONSTI- 
TUTION. 

The  part  of  that  instrument  specially  alluded  to  is  the  pre- 
amble "  We,  the  people  of  the  Confederate  States,  each  State 
acting  in  its  sovereign  and  independent  character,  in  order  to 
form  a  permanent  Federal  Government,  establish  justice,  insure 
domestic  tranquillity,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to 
ourselves  and  our  posterity;  invoking  the  favor  and  guidance 
of  Almighty  God,  do  ordain  and  establish  this  constitution  for 
the  Confederate  States  of  America."  Please  mark  the  words 
in  italics  !  Each  State  acted  in  its  sovereign  and  independent 
character  in  forming  the  Confederate  Government.  Each 
State,  therefore,  acting  in  the  same  character,  may  withdraw 
from  the  Confederacy  at  pleasure.  The  right  of  secession  is 
thus  expressly  recognized.  This  is  not  a  hempen  cable,  nor  a 
chain  of  brass,  but  a  rope  of  sand.  And  for  what  could  such 
a  government  as  this  have  been  made  ?  The  interests  of  the 
States  embraced  within  its  jurisdiction  are  diverse,  and  even 
conflicting.  The  necessities  of  South  Carolina  and  Virginia, 
are  no  more  identical  than  are  those  of  South  Carolina  and 
Massachusetts.  Yet  here  is  a  government  formed  for  fifteen 
large  States,  widely  differing  in  their  population,  products,  and 
wants,  which  would  not  bear  the  slightest  strain,  which  cupidity 
or  wounded  pride,  or  local  prejudice,  or  personal  ambition 
might  take  to  pieces  at  any  moment.  Now,  although  the  lead- 
ing conspirators  are  not  great  statesmen,  neither  are  they  great 
fools.  They  never  would  have  incurred  the  risks  involved  in 
secession  and  rebellion,  to  form  a  government  of  States  utterly 
wanting  in  the  main  element  of  permanent  existence.  Their 
whole  system  as  it  stands  is  what  a  human  body  would  be  with- 
out a  back-bone.  Such  a  body  would  not  stand.  Neither  would 
the  rebel  Confederacy,  nor  did  they  design  it  should  when 
they  formed  it.  It  was  intended  as  a  temporary  concession  to 
the  extreme  "  States'  Rights"  party  in  the  South,  which*  was 
to  be  withdrawn  upon  the  first  convenient  occasion.  It  was  a 
system  artfully  contrived  to  flatter  local  vanity,  till  the  work 
of  secession  from  the  old  Union  could  be  completed,  and  a  large 
and  efficient  army  organized.  Then  the  disjointed  structure 
without  cohesion,  or  strength  of  any  kind,  was  to  be  taken 
down,  and  a  monarchy  substituted  in  its  place.  And  if  you 
say  the  eyes  of  the  ijeople  would  then  have  been  opened,  and 
that  with  a  single  breath  of  their  hot  indignation,  they  would 
have  blasted  their  betrayers  forever.  I  have  only  to  remind 
you  that  it  would  then  have  been  too  late.  With  all  parts  of 
civil  authority  in  the  hands  of  the  monarchists,  and  all  military 


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commands  invested  in  their  friends,  what  could  the  people  have 
done  ?  And  had  this  fell  scheme  proved  successful  in  the 
slave-holding,  it  would  then  have  been  attempted  in  the  non- 
slave-holding  States,  also.  For  the  name  of  the  sympathizers 
with  that  scheme  in  these  States  is  *'  legion."  You  remember 
the  advice  of  that  traitor  and  lineal  descendant  of  a  tory,  Wil- 
liam B.  Reed,  of  Philadelphia. '  Rather  than  unite  with  the 
non-seceding  States,  to  support  the  Federal  Government  in  an 
attempt  to  coerce  the  Southern  seceders  back  into  the  Union, 
that  pacific,  and  somewhat  notorious  worthy,  advised  that 
Pennsylvania  should  resume  her  sovereignty,  proclaim  her  in- 
dependence, and  unite  her  fortunes  with  the  slave-breeder's 
monarchy. 

II. — THE  RECENT  DECLARATION  OP  THE  REBEL  PRESIDENT. 

In  the  month  of  August,  year  of  grace,  1864,  two  gentlemen 
of  purest  Union  blood,  Col.  Jaques,  of  the  73d  Illinois  Volun- 
teers, who  is  an  eminent  Methodist  clergyman,  as  -well  as  a 
brave  and  skillful  soldier,  and  Mr.  Gilmore,  a  distinguished 
American  author,  crossed  the  lines  of  General  Grant,  with  a 
pass  from  President  Lincoln,  and  went  to  Richmond.  They 
had  no  authority  from  their  Government,  but  went  on  their 
own  responsibility,  desiring  if  possible,  to  ascertain  upon  what 
conditions  peace  might  be  re-established,  and  the  dreadful 
effusion  of  blood  at  once  and  forever  stayed.  They  had  an 
interview  with  Davis,  the  account  of  which  is,  in  all  its  particu- 
lars, interesting,  but  in  none  so  much  so  as  in  that  which  sets 
forth  that  arch  traitor's  view  of  what  should  be  the  governing 
power  in  a  nation.  We,  in  that  republican  simplicity,  which 
we  inherited  from  our  Revolutionary  forefathers,  have  always 
maintained  that  the  governing  power  should  belong  to  a 
majority  of  duly  qualified  voters,  and  so  thought  the  aforesaid 
visitors  to  the  rebel  chief.  But  that  distinguished  functionary, 
as  we  learn,  entertains  no  such  opinion.  Hear  him  on  the 
ruling  power  of  majorities: 

"  Jaques. — Suppose  the*  two  Governments  should  agree  to 
something  like  this :  to  go  to  the  people  with  two  propositions, 
say  peace,  with  disunion  and  Southern  independence,  as  your 
proposition  ;  and  peace,  with  union,  emancipation,  no  confisca- 
tion, and  universal  amnesty,  as  ours.  Let  the  citizens  of  all 
the  United  States,  (as  they  existed  before  the  war,)  vote  4  yes,' 
or  '  no,'  on  these  two  propositions,  at  a  special  election,  within 
sixty  days.  If  a  majority  votes  disunion,  our  Government  to 
be  bound  by  it,  and  to  let  you  go  in  peace.  If  a  majority  votes 
union,  yours  to  be  bound  by  it,  and  to  stay  in  peace.  The 


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two  Governments  can  contract  in  this  way,  and  the  people, 
though  constitutionally  unable  to  decide  on  peace  or  war,  can 
elect  which  of  the  two  propositions  shall  govern  their  rulers  ?" 

"  Davis. — The  plan  is  altogether  impracticable.  If  the 
South  were  only  one  State,  it  might  work  ;  but  as  it  is,  if  one 
Southren  State  objected  to  emancipation,  it  would  nullify  the 
whole  thing  ;  for  you  are  aware  the  people  of  Virginia  cannot 
vote  slavery  out  of  South  Carolina,  nor  the  people  of  South 
Carolina  vote  it  out  of  Virginia." 

"Jaques: — But  three-fourths  of  the  States  can  amend  the 
Constitution.  Let  it  be  done  in  that  way,  or  any  way  so  that 
it  be  done  by  the  people.  I  am  not  a  statesman  or  a  politician, 
and  I  do  not  know  just  how  such  a  plan  could  be  carried  out, 
but  you  get  the  idea  that  the  people  shall  decide  the  question." 

" Davis. — That  the  majority  shall  decide  it,  you  mean? 
We  seceded  to  rid  ourselves  of  the  rule  of  the  majority ;  and  this 
would  subject  us  to  it  again." 

"Jaques. — But  the  majority  must  rule  finally,  either  with 
bullets  or  ballots." 

"  Davis. — I  am  not  so  sure  of  that.  Neither  current  events 
nor  history  shows  that  the  majority  rules,  or  ever  did  rule. 
The  contrary,  I  think,  is  true."  Here  is  Mr.  Davis'  express, 
unqualified  avowal  that  the  Southern  disunionists  seceded  to 
rid  themselves  from  the  rule  of  a  majority.  Now  what  sort  of 
a  Republic  would  it  be  in  which  a  minority  should  rule  the 
majority  ?  It  might  be  a  Republic  in  name,  but  not  in  fact, 
according  to  the  American  idea  of  that  theory  of, government. 
And  is  it  not  obvious  as  the  light  of  day,  that  men  who  were 
no  longer  willing  to  submit  to  the  majority  rule  of  true  Repub- 
licanism, must  have  contemplated  a  monarchy  from  the  moment 
of  the  first  thought  of  setting  that  rule  at  defiance  ? 

III. — THE  OFT  REPEATED   AND   RANK  AVOWALS  OF  SOUTHERN 
JOURNALISTS  BEFORE  THE  WAR. 

The  extracts  about  to  be  given  will  show  how  harmoniously 
the  ideas  of  slavery  and  monarchy  were  blended  in  the  public 
'    mind  of  the  South  : 

"  Until  recently,  the  defence  of  slavery  has  labored  under 
great  difficulties,  because  its  apologists  (for  they  were  mere 
apologists,)  took  half-way  grounds.  They  confined  the  defence 
of  slavery  to  mere  negro  slavery,  thereby  giving  up  the  slavery 
principle,  and  admitting  other  forms  of  slavery  to  be  wrong. 
The  line  of  defence  is  now  changed.  The  South  nowT  main- 
tains that  slavery  is  right,  natural,  and  necessary,  and  does 
not  depend  on  difference  of  complexion.    The  laws  of  the 


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slave  States  justify  the  holding  of  white  men  in  bondage." — 
Richmond  Examiner. 

"  Slavery  is  the  natural  and  normal  condition  of  the  laboring 
man,  whether  white  or  black.  The  great  evil  of  Northern 
free  society  is  that  it  is  burdened  with  a  servile  class  of  me- 
chanics and  laborers,  unfit  for  self  government,  and  yet 
clothed  with  the  attributes  and  powers  of  citizens.  Master  and 
slave  is  a  relation  in  society  as  necessary  as  that  of  parent  and 
child  ;  and  the  Northern  States  will  yet  have  to  introduce  it. 
Their  theory  of  free  government  is  a  delusion." — Charleston 
Mercury. 

"  Repeatedly  have  we  asked  the  North,  Has  not  the  experi- 
ment of  universal  liberty  failed  ?  Are  not  the  evils  of  free 
society  insufferable  ?  And  do  not  most  thinking  men  among 
you  propose  to  subvert  and  reconstruct  it  ?  Still  no  answer. 
This  gloomy  silence  is  another  conclusive  proof  added  to  many 
other  conclusive  evidences,  we  have  furnished  that  free  society, 
in  the  long  run,  is  an  impracticable  form  of  society  ;  it  is  every- 
where starving,  demoralized,  and  insurrectionary." — Richmond 
Inquirer. 

"  We  repeat,  then,  that  policy  and  humanity  alike  forbid  the 
extension  of  the  evils  of  free  society  to  new  people  and  coming 
generations.  Two  opposite  and  conflicting  forms  of  society 
cannot,  among  civilized  .  men,  coexist  and  endure.  The  one 
must  give  way  and  cease  to  exist.  The  other  must  become 
universal.  If  free  society  be  unnatural,  immoral,  unchristian, 
it  must  fall,  and  give  way  to  slave  society — a  social  system  as 
old  as  the  world,  as  universal  as  man." — Richmond  Inquirer, 

"  Free  society  !  we  sicken  at  the  name.  What  is  it  but  a 
conglomeration  of  greasy  mechanics,  filthy  operatives,  small- 
fisted  farmers,  and  moonstruck  theorists.  All  the  Northern, 
and  especially  the  New  England  States,  are  devoid  of  society 
fitted  for  well-bred  gentlemen.  The  prevailing  class  one  meets 
with<is  that  of  mechanics,  struggling  to  be  genteel,  and  small 
farmers  who  do  their  own  druogery,  and  yet  who  are  hardly 
fit  for  association  with  a  Southern  gentleman's  body  servant. 
This  is  your  free  society  which  the  northern  hordes  are  endea- 
voring to  extend  into  Kansas." — Alabama  Herald. 

"  We  have  got  to  hating  eyerything  with  the  prefix  free, 
from  free  negroes  down  and  up  through  the  whole  catalogue, 
free  farms,  free  labor,  free  society,  free  will,  free 

THINKING,  FREE  CHILDREN,  AND  FREE  SCHOOLS — all  belonging 

to  the  same  brood  of  damnable  isms.  But  the  worst  of  all  these 
abominations  is  the  modern  system  of  free  schools. '  The 
New  England  system  of  free  schools  has  been  the  cause  and 


6 


prolific  source  of  the  infidelities  and  treasons  that  have  turned 
her  cities  into  Sodoms  and  Gomorrahs,  and  her  land  into  the 
common  nestling  places  of  howling  bedlamites.  We  abominate 

THE  SYSTEM  BECAUSE  THE  SCHOOLS  ARE  FREE." — South-Side 

Democrat.    [Beautiful  Democracy,  indeed.'] 

This  will  do  as  a  specimen  of  the  tone  of  the  Southern 
journals,  which  may  be  taken  as  fair  exponents  of  the  opinions 
of  the  leading  Southern  conspirators,  and  of  their  co-rebels  in 
the  higher  and  middle  classes  of  society.  One  might  think 
that  such  language  was  never  penned  in  this  country,  beyond 
the  line  of  the  slave-holding  States.  But  such  a  thought, 
however  natural,  would  be  a  great  mistake.  You  know  that 
our  political  affairs  have,  in  the  main,  for  many  years  been 
ruled  by  the  Democratic  party,  so  called.  This  has  been  done 
by  accepting  the  Southern  creed  for  the  enslavement  of  all 
laboring  men,  black  and  white,  in  order  to  obtain  the  solid 
electoral  vote  of  the  Southern  States.  By  holding  the  balance 
of  power,  the  slave-holding  politicians  were  preparing  the  way 
for  the  propagation  of  their  opinions  through  the  North,  and 
the  ultimate  enslavement  of  all  laboring  men  throughout  the 
country.  Read  what  the  New  York.  "  Day-Booh"' — a  Demo- 
cratic journal,  says  of  poor  white  people,  especially  poor  Ger- 
mans and  Irish  : 

"Sell  the  parents  of  these  children  into  slavery.  Let  our 
legislature  pass  a  law  that  whoever  will  take  these  parents,  and 
take  care  of  them  and  their  offspring,  in  sickness  and  in 
health,  clothe  them,  feed  them,  and  house  them,  shall  be  le- 
gally entitled  to  their  services ;  and  let  the  same  legislature 
decree  that  whoever  receives  these  parents,  and  their  children, 
and  obtains  their  services,  shall  take  care  of  them  as  long  as 
they  live."  They  are  to  be  bought  as  property,  to  be  held  as 
slaves,  to  be  worked  for  the  benefit  of  the  proprietors,  are  in 
old  age  to  depend  on  their  owners,  in  one  word,  it  is  the  black 
slave  system  of  the  South,  to  be  applied  in  the  North  to  poor 
white  laboringmen  and  their  children.  All  the  journals  from 
which  these  extracts  are  taken,  have  the  more  than  satanic  im- 
pudence to  profess  democratic  principles.  It  is  under  the 
guise  of  a  democratic  name  merely,  that  they  are  misleading 
many  thousands  of  honest  workingmen  toward  an  issue  that 
would  be  fatal  to  their  political  equality  and  personal  freedom. 
The  leading  conspirators  in  the  South,  and  their  open  unarmed 
allies  of  the  North  profess  to  be  democrats,  while  with  the 
same  breath  they  proclaim  slavery  to  be  the  natural  condition 
of  the  laboringman  whether  black  or  white — pronounce  our  in- 
telligent mechanic  to  be  unworthy  to  be  the  companion  of  a 


7 


southern  gentleman's  negro  body  servant — declare  free  govern- 
ment to  be  a  failure — denounce  free  schools,  and  advocate  the 
sale  and  enslavement  of  poor  white  men  and  their  children. 
Now  turn  back  and  read  again  their  own  language,  containing 
these  anti-republican,  these  despotic,  these  damnable  senti- 
ments. Then  ask  yourselves,  what  other  design  could  move 
men,  holding  such  sentiments,  than  the  overthrow  of  this  re- 
public, and  the  erection  of  a  monarchy  and  an  aristocracy  upon 
its  ruins  ?  In  view  of  such  sentiments  what  Toombs,  of  Geor- 
gia, said  to  Andrew  Johnson,  the  Union  candidate  for  the  Vice- 
presidency,  is  no  matter  of  surprise.  "  Southern  gentlemen  " 
said  that  somewhat  remarkable  traitor,  "  are  not  willing  to  sub- 
mit to  the  Administration  of  a  president  chosen  from  the  ranks 
of  the  people,  as  ivas  Abraham  Lincoln.'"  This  is  the  animus 
of  the  rebellion.  This  is  the  spirit  of  every  armed  rebel,  and 
of  every  unarmed  rebel  sympathizer.  Their  whole  scheme  is 
essentially  and  avowedly  monarchic  and  aristocratic. 

And  now  bear  in  mind  that  the  men  who  have  dishonored 
our  Halls  of  Congress  with  apologies  for  the  rebellion,  the  men 
who  advocate  with  tongue  and  pen  the  black  and  white  slave 
system,  the  men  who  denounce  the  war  as  an  invasion  of  the 
rights  of  armed  traitors,  the  men  who  extol  the  rebel  and  dis- 
parage the  federal  armies,  the  men  who  are  elated  over  a  rebel, 
and  completely  chop-fallen  over  a  national  victory,  the  men 
who  now  clamor  for  peace  on  the  condition  of  surrender  to  all 
the  traitors  demand,  and  regardless  of  all  the  precious  treasure 
that  has  been  expended,  and  the  still  more  precious  blood  that 
has  been  shed — these  very  men  presided  over  the  late  Chicago 
Convention,  and  dictated  its  nominations. 

Now  will  you,  can  you,  as  laboring  men,  support  with  your 
votes  the  candidates  put  forward  by  men  holding  such  opinions? 
Why,  they  are  your  natural  enemies.  They  aim  at  the  de- 
struction of  your  political  equality,  and  your  personal  degra- 
dation to  the  condition  of  slaves.  Such  rank,  such  unnameable 
treason  against  your  dearest  rights  and  privileges,  and  those  of 
your  children,  would  be  incredible  and  inconceivable  had  they 
not  publicly  proclaimed  by  bloody  deeds  in  the  South — bloody 
riots  in  the  North,  and  everywhere  by  language  suited  only  to 
the  tongues  and  pens  of  a  bloody-minded  despotism.  And  don't 
forget  to  contrast  these  monarchic  and  aristocratic  opinions 
with  the  opinions  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Andrew  Johnson. 
When  that  hundred  days'  regiment  of  Ohio  volunteers  called 
at  the  White  House  on  its  return  from  the  field,  Abraham  Lin- 
coln met  them  as  a  man  of  the  people,  spoke  to  them  as  one  of 
themselves,  recognized  and  thanked  them  as  the  governors  and 


8 


saviour?  of  the  nation,  and  said,  "  I  had  no  thought,  at  one 
time,  of  ever  occupying  this  place.  And  there  is  not  a  son  of 
any  one  of  you,  who  may  not  come  here  as  I  came.  For  this 
we  are  fighting.  We  seek  the  restoration  of  the  Union  in  order 
to  insure  the  political  equality  of  all  citizens."  This  is  the 
language  of  pure  republicanism.  This  is  the  language  of  a  genu- 
ine democracy.  For  democracy  means  simply  government  by 
a  majority  of  the  votes  of  the  people.  The  same  noble  stand, 
in  the  midst  of  the  people,  has  ever  been  taken  by  Andrew 
Johnson.  Faithful  among  the  faithless,  he  grasped  the  stand- 
aid  of  the  people,  and  with  Brownlow,  Maynard,  and  a  few 
others  saved  to  the  Union  that  great  and  glorious  State,  which 
was  animated  by  the  patriotism  of  Jackson,  and  whose  soil  en- 
closes his  august  remains.  Lincoln  and  Johnson,  as  you  well 
know,  have  risen  from  the  ranks  of  the  laboringmen.  They 
have  toiled  with  the  people.  They  have  shared  the  poverty  of 
the  people.  They  feel  as  men  of  the  people.  They  sympathize 
with  the  wants  of  the  people.  In  their  elevation  they  have  not 
forgotten  their  origin  among  the  people. 

And  now  brother  workingmen,  permit  a  workingman  to  ask 
why  you  should  not  vote  for  these  men,  who  are  peculiarly  our' 
own  representatives  ?  Their  opponents  are  not  men.  of  the 
people.  McClellan  was  reared  among  the  social  aristocracy  of 
Philadelphia.  Pendleton  was  bred  among  the  social  aristocracy 
of  Virginia,  and  was  born  on  that  aristocratic  soil.  These  men, 
in  reality,  have  no  sympathy  in  common  with  our  class.  And 
hence  McClellan  has  always  favored,  and  is  still  opposed  to  the 
constitutional  abolition  of  that  southern  slave  system,  which  is 
advocated  as  the  fitting  basis  of  an  aristocracy,  especially  when 
it  shall  have  been  extended  and  improved,  so  as  to  include 
within  its  grinding  power,  poor  white  men  and  their  children. 
And  Pendleton,  not  less  fiercely  than  Wood  and  Vajlan digram, 
has  ever  clamored  for  the  maintenance  and  propagation  of  the 
same.  The  particular  friends  of  these  men_  are  the  nabobs  of 
New  York  city,  who  when  they  take  a  drive  in  the  park,  are 
attended  by  outriders — white  men  in  livery,  and  are  drawn  by 
four  horses,  which  cost  not  less  than  ten  thousand  dollars. 
These  are  the  men  who  would  control  the  Administration  of 
McClellan  and  Pendleton.  Would  it  not  be  an  Administration 
in  the  interests  of  the  South  ? 


4 


THE  RECORD 

OF  THE 

DEMOCRATIC  PARTY. 

1860-1865. 


THE 

RECORD  OF  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY, 

1860—1865. 


I. — SECESSION  AND  RECONSTRUCTION r 

The  War  against  Rebellion  has  passed  into  history.  Had  it  proved  un- 
successful, the  political  party  which  has  never  ceased  to  predict  its  ill- 
success  and  to  obstruct  its  progress  would  have  claimed  and  secured,  as 
the  reward  of  its  political  sagacity,  the  management  of  our  national  affairs 
for  a  generation.  To  oppose  a  successful  war,  however,  is  likely,  in  a  Re- 
public, to  prove  the  destruction  of  any  organization  guilty  of  so  unpatriotic 
a  blunder,  and  the  Democracy,  which  has  thus  proved  its  faithlessness  to  - 
the  great  principles  on  which  it  was  founded,  is  now  seeking  to  obliterate 
the  damning  record  of  its  course  since  the  election  of  1860. 

For  a  few  months,  indeed,  after  the  fall  of  Sumter,  the  indignant  energy 
of  the  people  suppressed  open  manifestations  of  factious  opposition.  Since 
the  surrender  of  the  rebels  and  the  assassination  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  also,  the  • 
hopelessness  of  the  cause  of  slavery  and  state  rights  has  stilled  all  rising 
agitation ;  and  the  mourning  of  a  nation  has  forced  those  who  lately  attacked 
our  late  Chief  Magistrate  with  ceaseless  venom  to  beslime  his  memory  with 
yet  more  nauseous  praise.  These  scanty  proofs  of  patriotism  are  now  ap- 
pealed to  in  the  hope  that  an  easy  public  may  in  a  few  short  years  forget 
the  consistent  policy  which  lost  no  opportunity  of  embarrassing  the  Gov- 
ernment and  encouraging  the  Rebellion,  during  the  gloomy  period  when 
the  national  life  hung  in  the  balance  and  destruction  seemed  only  to  be 
averted  by  unanimous  effort.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  reflect  that  a  powerful 
party,  which  had  for  nearly  half  a  century  controlled  the  destinies  of  the 
country,  has  played  so  base  and  treasonable  a  part  in  the  hour  of  peril;  and 
the  people  will  be  ready  to  banish  all  memories  of  so  disgraceful  and 
humiliating  a  fact.  It  is  important,  however,  that  in  the  future  we  should 
know  who  are  to  be  trusted  and  who  to  be  shunned.    The  problems  to  be 


2 


solved  within  the  next  ten  years  are  too  momentous  to  mankind  to  be  con- 
fided to  those  who  have  proved  themselves  recreant  alike  to  republicanism 
and  to  true  democracy.  It  may  therefore  not  be  amiss  to  throw  together, 
in  a  shape  for  preservation  and  convenient  reference,  a  few  of  the  innu- 
merable proofs  that  the  great  Democratic  Party  has  throughout  the  contest 
been  the  consistent  and  i'aithful  ally  of  the  Rebellion ;  that  it  invited  se- 
cession, declared  that  coercion  was  unconstitutional  and  war  illegal,  and  that 
it  opposed  every  measure  adopted  by  the  nation  to  carry  on  the  war — sus- 
pension of  the  habeas  corpus,  conscription,  emancipation,  loans,  legal  ten- 
der money  and  taxation — everything,  in  fact,  to  which  we  owe  the  fortu- 
nate result  of  our  unexampled  struggle. 


HOW  THE  SOUTH  WAS  TEMPTED  TO  SECEDE. 

No  one  imagines  that,  had  the  South  supposed  that  its  revolt  would 
have  been  resisted  by  an  united  and  determined  North,  it  would  have 
plunged  into  the  fiery  gulf  of  rebellion.  Its  people  were  assured  by  their 
leaders  that  secession  would  be  peaceful,  that  it  was  justifiable,  that  it  was 
the  only  remedy  for  innumerable  wrongs,  that  any  attempt  by  fanatical 
abolitionists  to  interfere  with  the  movement  would  be  met  and  neutralized 
by  their  Democratic  allies  in  the  North,  and  that  eventually  the  Union 
would  be  reconstructed  under  a  pro-slavery  constitution  of  their  own  dic- 
tation, with  New  England  left  out,  or  only  admitted  as  one  consolidated 
state.  How  fully  they  were  justified  in  promulgating  these  fatal  errors 
can  easily  be  proved  by  references  to  the  utterances  of  chosen  leaders  of 
the  Democracy. 

OFFERS  OF  ASSISTANCE  TO  REBELLION. 

Ex-President  Franklin  Pierce,  in  a  letter  to  Jefferson  Davis,  as  early  as 
January  6,  1860,  thus  assured  him  that  his  Northern  allies  would  be  faith- 
ful to  the  last  extremity. 

"  I  do  not  believe  that  our  friends  at  the  South  have  any  just  idea  of  the  state 
of  feeling,  hurrying  at  this  moment  to  the  pitch  of  intense  exasperation  between 
those  who  respect  their  political  obligations,  and  those  who  have  apparently  no 
impelling  power  but  that  which  fanatical  passion  on  the  subject  of  domestic 
slavery  imparts.  Without  discussing  the  question  of  right — of  abstract  power 
to  secede,  I  have  never  believed  that  actual  disruption  of  the  Union  can  occur 
without  blood  ;  and  if  through  the  madness  of  Northern  Abolitionists  that  dire 
calamity  must  come,  the  fighting  will  not  be  along  Mason  and  Dixon's  line 
merely.  It  will  be  within  our  own  borders,  in  our  own  streets,  between  the 
two  classes  of  citizens  to  whom  I  have  referred.  Those  who  defy  law  and  scout 
constitutional  obligations  will,  if  ever  we  reach  the  arbitrament  of  arms,  find  oc- 
cupation enough  at  home." 


3 


SECESSION  JUSTIFIED. 

Few  Democratic  statesmen  were  found  bold  enoiigh  to  defend  secession 
as  a  constitutional  right,  but  the  South  was  assured  in  the  most  formal 
way  that  the  wrongs  inflicted  on  it  were  ample  to  justify  secession  as  a  revo- 
lutionary remedy. 

Thus  President  Buchanan  in  his  Message  of  December  3,  I860,  pro- 
claimed to  the  world,  that 

"  The  long  continued  and  intemperate  interference  of  the  Northern  people 

with  the  question  of  slavery  has  at  length  produced  its  natural  effects  

Self-preservation  is  the  first  law  of  nature,  and  has  been  implanted  in  the  heart 
of  man  by  his  Creator  for  the  wisest  purposes,  and  no  political  union,  however 
fraught  with  blessings  and  benefits  in  other  respects,  can  long  continue  if  the 
necessary  consequences  be  to  render  the  homes  and  the  firesides  of  nearly  half 
the  parties  to  it  habitually  and  hopelessly  insecure.  Sooner  or  later  the  bonds 
of  such  a  Union  must  be  severed." 

And,  though  he  denied  the  constitutional  right  of 'secession,  he  told  the 
South,  which  at  that  moment  was  taking  the  preliminary  steps  to  secede, 
that,  if  the  "personal  liberty  bills"  of  some  of  the  extreme  Northern  States 
were  not  repealed, 

"In  that  event,  the  injured  States,  after  having  first  used  all  peaceful  and 
constitutional  means  to  obtain  redress,  would  be  justified  in  revolutionary  re- 
sistance to  the  Government  of  the  Union." 

Well  might  Howell  Cobb  say,  in  a  confidential  letter  to  a  Georgia 
editor : 

"  I  repeat  to  you  that  the  administration  of  Mr.  Buchanan  is  the  most  tho- 
roughly identified  with  our  principles  and  our  rights  of  any  that  has  ever  pre- 
ceded it,  and  I  am  willing  to  stand  or  fall  upon  the  issue." 

After  this  hideous  invitation  to  rebellion  in  the  solemn  state  papers  of 
our  National  Chief  Magistrate,  further  proof  would  seem  to  be  supererogatory, 
but  a  few  utterances  by  other  party  leaders  may  be  admitted  to  show  that 
this  doctrine  was  accepted  by  the  Democracy,  and  was  continually  promul- 
gated both  before  and  during  the  whole  course  of  the  war. 

Thus,  on  December  13, 1860,  while  the  secession  of  South  Carolina  was 
rapidly  maturing,  Judge  Woodward,  the  most  prominent  and  trusted  Demo- 
crat in  Pennsylvania,  profaned  the  sacred  precincts  of  Independence  Square 
with  the  following  : 

"  We  must  arouse  ourselves  and  re-assert  the  rights  of  the  slaveholder,  and 
add  such  guarantees  to  our  Constitution  as  will  protect  his  property  from  the 
the  spoliation  of  religious  bigotry  and  persecution,  or  else  we  must  give  up  our 
Constitution  and  Union.  Events  are  placing  the  alternative  plainly  before  us — 
constitutional  union  and  liberty  according  to  American  law  ;  or  else,  extinction 
of  slave  property,  negro  freedom,  dissolution  of  the  Union,  and  anarchy  and 
confusion  We  hear  it  said,  Let  South  Carolina  go  out  of  the 


4 


Union  peaoeablj.  I  say,  let  lier  go  peaceably  if  she  go  at  all,  but  why  should 
South  Carolina  bo  DE1VJEN  out  of  the  Union  by  an  irrepressible  eonflict  about 
slavery  ?" 

And  not  only  was  the  speaker  endorsed  by  receiving  the  Democratic 
nomination  for  Governor  of  Pennsylvania  in  I860,  but  this  speech  was 
declared  in  the  address  of  the  Democratic  State  Central  Committee  in 
August,  I860,  to  have  u  been  vindicated  by  subsequent  events  as  a  signal 
exhibition  of  statesmanlike  sagacity  j"  it  was  reprinted  by  that  Committee 
and  circulated  throughout  the  State  by  thousands,  as  the  purest  embodi- 
ment of  the  Democratic  creed,  with  a  preface  in  which  the  Chairman  of 
that  Committee,  Charles  J.  Biddle,  declared  his  belief  that  no  intelligent 
man  "  will  fail  to  see  m  it  the  wisdom  and  foresight  of  a  statesman  such  a:s 
the  Commonwealth  now  needs  in  the  direction  of  its  affairs." 

In  the  same  spirit,  the  address  of  the  Democratic  State  Central  Commit- 
tee in  1863,  assures  us,  that 

"The  substantial  interests  of  the  South,  especially  the  slaveholding  interest, 
were  reluctantly  drawn  into  secession."  On  the  other  hand,  the  Abolitionists 
"  counted  on  an  ea^y  triumph  through  the  aid  of  revolted  slaves,  and,  in  this  re- 
liance, were  careless  how  soon  they  provoked  a  collision.  ...  To  cover  up  their 
own  tracks,  they  invite  us  to  spend  all  our  indignation  upon  '  Southern  traitors 
but  truth  compels  us  to  add  that,  in  the  race  of  treason,  the  Northern  traitors 
to  the  Constitution  had  the  start." 

So,  on  the  16th  of  January,  1861,  the  Democratic  Party  of  Philadelphia, 
assembled  at  a  great  meeting  in  National  Hall,  while  State  after  State  was 
defiantly  passing  ordinances  of  secession,  and  seizing' forts,  arsenals,  dock- 
yards and  custom-houses.  They  had  no  word  of  reprobation  for  Southern 
treason,  but,  in  the  series  of  resolutions  adopted,  they  declared  their  party 
faith  to  be  that  the  citizens  of  Pennsylvania  should 

"  Determine  with  whom  their  lot  shall  be  cast ;  whether  with  the  North  and 
East  whose  fanaticism  has  precipitated  this  misery  upon  us,  or  with  our  brethren 
of  the  South,  whose  wrongs  we  feel  as  our  own." 

So,  the  Detroit  Free  Press,  a  Democratic  organ,  April  16,  1862 : 

"  History  will  relate  that  we,"  (the  North),  "  manufactured  the  conflict, 
forced  it  to  hotbed  precocity,  nourished  and  invited  it." 

So,  too,  Edward  Ingersoll,  in  an  address  to  the  Democratic  Central 
Club  of  Philadelphia,  delivered  June  13,  1863,  when  Lee  was  on  the  bor- 
ders of  Pennsylvania  : 

"  Until  the  spirit  of  disunion  and  hatred,  which  is  Abolitionism,  is  put  down 
in  our  midst,  government,  which  alone  can  give  us  peace,  is  impossible.  Don't 
trouble  yourselves  about  the  disunion  spirit  in  the  South  ;  don't  trouble  your- 
selves about  the  Southern  Confederacy  ;  take  the  beam  out  of  your  own  eye  ;  we 
will  find  political  occupation  enough  at  home  for  some  time  to  come.  When 
the  Federal  Administration  ceases  to  be  a  government,  and  represents  nothing 
but  the  instinct  of  hatred  and  destruction  against  one  section  of  our  country, 


5 

that  section  wisely  and  naturally  concentrates  the  whole  vigor  of  its  nature  in 
resistance" 


PLANS  FOR  BREAKING  UP  THE  UNION. 

Mr.  Buchanan  had  formally  declared,  in  his  Message  of  December,  1860, 
that  there  was  no  constitutional  right  of  secession.  His  party  thereupon 
commenced  to  agitate  plans  by  which  the  South  could  be  coaxed  back  into 
a  Union  wherein  the  right  to  secede  should  be  legalized.  The  most  notori- 
ous of  these  schemes  was  that  introduced  into  Congress  by  Mr.  Vallandig- 
ham,  proposing  a  constitutional  amendment  by  which  the  Union  should  be 
peacefully  divided,  as  follows  : 

"  Article  XIII.  Section  I.  The  United  States  are  divided  into  four  sections, 
as  follows : 

"  The  States  of  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Is- 
land, Connecticut,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania  shall 

constitute  one  section,  to  be  known  as  the  North. 

"  The  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Minnesota, 

Iowa  and  Kansas,  shall  -constitute  another  section,  to  be  known  as 

the  West. 

"  The  States  of  Oregon  and  California  shall  constitute  another  sec- 
tion, to  be  known  as  the  Pacific 

"  The  States  of  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  South  Caro- 
lina, Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Texas,  Arkansas,  Ten- 
nessee, Kentucky  and  Missouri  ....  shall  constitute  another  section,  to  be 
known  as  the  South. 

*'  Article  XIV.  No  State  shall  secede  without  the  consent  of  the  Legislatures 
of  all  the  States  of  the  section  to  which  the  State  proposing  to  secede  belongs. 
The  President  shall  have  power  to  adjust  with  seceding  States  all  questions 
arising  by  reason  of  their  secession  ;  but  the  terms  of  adjustment  shall  be  sub- 
mitted to  Congress  for  their  approval  before  the  same  shall  be  valid." 

This  artful  scheme  for  legalizing  secession  was  well  received  by  the  Demo- 
cratic leaders.  Mr.  George  H.  Pendleton,  the  Chicago  candidate  for  the 
Vice-Presidency,  defended  it  in  the  House  of  Representatives  as  late  as 
January,  1863.  May  9,  1863,  Mr.  Wall,  Democratic  Senator  from  New 
Jersey,  in  an  address  to  the  Democratic  Central  Club  of  Philadelphia,  not 
only  did  not  hesitate  to  give  it  his  hearty  approval,  but  declared  that  it, 
or  some  similar  scheme,  was  the  only  alternative  to  eternal  separation! 

"  The  plan  suggested  some  years  ago  by  Mr.  Vallandigham  bears  the  stamp 
of  his  clear  sagacity  and  statesmanlike  forecast — dividing  the  country  into  four 
large  sections  or  masses,  and  requiring  a  majority  of  the  representation  from 
each,  to  consent  to  a  measure  before  it  should  become  a  law.  Mr.  Calhoun,  not- 
withstanding the  undeserved  obloquy  now  attaching  to  his  name,  was  to  my 
mind  the  most  honest  and  comprehensive  statesman  who  grappled  with  national 
problems,  and  I  make  bold  here  to  say  that  no  wiser,  purer,  patriotic  statesman 
ever  lived.  It  may  be  that  the  South  might  be  willing  to  return  upon  the 
adoption  of  some  such  system  of  reconstruction  as  this.  If  this  plan  of  recon- 
ciliation and  reconstruction  fails,  then  a  separation  must  be  the  finality." 


0 


Mr.  Vallandigham's  scheme  for  breaking  up  the  Union  having  been 
rejected  by  Congress  and  the  people,  other  plans  were  agitated.  A 
Northwestern  Confederacy  was  freely  spoken  of,  and  for  a  long  while  the 
rebels  had  confident  hope  of  the  success  of  their  agents  in  that  direction, 
working  in  co-operation  with  their  Democratic  allies.  It  was  not  difficult 
for  that  party  to  find  justification  for  this  or  any  other  destructive  plot. 

Judge  Black,  Mr.  Buchanan's  Attorney  General,  even  went  so  far  as  to 
declare  that  war  made  by  Congress  upon  a  seceding  State  would  legalize 
secession  and  dissolve  the  union  of  the  remaining  States.  In  an  official 
opinion,  dated  November  20,  1860,  only  a  fortnight  after  Mr.  Lincoln's 
election,  and  which  through  the  traitors  in  the  cabinet  was  of  course 
made  known  to  the  traitors  organizing  rebellion  throughout  the  South,  he 
says : 

"If  it  be  true  that  war  cannot  be  declared,  nor  a  system  of  general  hostilities 
carried  on  by  the  Central  Government  against  a  State,  then  it  seems  to  follow 
that  an  attempt  to  do  so  would  be  ipso  facto,  an  expulsion  of  such  State  from 
the  Union,  being  treated  as  an  alien  and  an  enemy,  she  would  be  compelled  to 
act  accordingly.  And  if  Congress  shall  break  up  the  present  Union  by  uncon- 
stitutionally putting  strife  and  enmity  and  armed  hostility  between  different 
sections  of  the  country,  instead  of  the  '  domestic  tranquility'  which  the  Consti- 
tution was  meant  to  insure,  will  not  all  the  States  be  absolved  from  their  Federal 
obligations  ?  Is  any  portion  of  the  people  bound  to  contribute  their  money  or 
their  blood  to  carry  on  a  contest  like  that?" 

The  Syracuse  Convention,  in  August,  1864,  under  the  lead  of  Mr.  Vallan- 
digham,  drew  the  same  conclusion  from  different  premises,  and  openly 
declared  the  revolutionary  doctrine. 

"  Resolved,  That  ...  it  (the  administration)  has  denied  to  sovereign  States 
constitutional  rights,  and  thereby  absolved  them  from  all  allegiance." 

COERCION  UNCONSTITUTIONAL. 

Had  the  Union  men  of  the  South  felt  that  they  would  receive  the  sup- 
port of  the  Government  to  the  last  extremity,  they  might  have  success- 
fully resisted  the  tide  of  secession  which  swept  over  the  Gulf  States  in  the 
winter  of  1860-1861.  In  place  of  this,  they  were  abandoned  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  the  fire-eating  chivalry,  and  were  plainly  told  that  there  was  no 
authority  in  the  Constitution  to  interfere  with  rebellion.  Thus,  Mr.  Bu- 
chanan, in  his  Message  of  December  3,  1860,  declared, 

"The  question  fairly  stated  is  :  Has  the  Constitution  delegated  to  Congress 
the  right  to  coerce  a  State  into  submission,  which  is  attempting  to  withdraw 
or  has  actually  withdrawn  from  the  Confederacy  ?  If  answered  in  the  affirma- 
tive, it  must  be  upon  the  principle  that  power  has  been  conferred  upon  Con- 
gress to  declare  or  to  make  war  upon  a  State.  After  much  serious  reflection,  I 
have  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  no  such  power  has  been  delegated  to  Con- 
gress or  to  any  other  department  of  the  Federal  Government  Without 

descending  to  particulars,  it  may  safely  be  asserted  that  the  power  to  make 


7 

war  against  a  State  is  at  variance  with  the  whole  spirit  of  the  Constitution. 
....  Congress  possesses  many  means  of  preserving  it  (the  Union),  by  con- 
ciliation, but  the  sword  was  not  placed  in  their  hands  to  preserve  it  by  force." 

This  direct  invitation  to  rebellion  by  a  promise  of  immunity,  was  at 
once  taken  up  by  those  who  have  ever  since  controlled  the  policy  of  the 
Democratic  Party. 

On  the  3d  of  January,  1861,  at  a  M  Union"  meeting  held  in  Philadelphia, 
the  Hon.  Ellis  Lewis,  a  well  known  and  influential  Democrat,  introduced 
a  series  of  resolutions,  in  which  the  right  of  secession  was  denied,  but  after 
blaming  the  North  for  its  unconstitutional  proceedings,  it  concluded  : 

"  Resolved,  That  if  the  Northern  States  should  be  unwilling  to  recognize  their 
constitutional  duties  towards  the  Southern  States,  it  would  be  right  to  acknow- 
ledge the  independence  of  the  Southern  States,  instead  of  waging  an  unlawful 
war  against  them." 

And  at  the  great  meeting  of  the  Philadelphia  Democracy,  held  January 
16,  after  the  firing  on  the  "Star  of  the  West"  in  Charleston  harbor, 
among  the  resolutions  enthusiastically  adopted  was  the  following : 

"  Tenth.  That  we  cordially  approve  the  disavowal  by  the  President,  in  his 
last  annual  message,  for  himself  and  for  Congress,  of  a  wrar-making  power 
against  a  State  of  the  Confederacy,  thus  reaffirming  the  express  doctrine  of  two 
of  the  great  founders  of  the  Constitution,  James  Madison  and  Alexander 
Hamilton." 

These  views  were  formally  adopted  by  the  party.  On  January  18, 
the  Military  Committee  reported  to  the  House  of  Representatives  a  bill  to 
provide  for  calling  out  the  Militia,  when  Mr.  George  H.  Pendleton  op- 
posed it  by  an  elaborate  argument,  in  which  he  said  : 

"  Now,  sir,  what  force  of  arms  can  compel  a  State  to  do  that  which  she  has 
agreed  to  do?  What  force  of  arms  can  compel  a  State  to  refrain  from  doing 
that  which  her  State  government,  supported  by  the  sentiment  of  her  people,  is 

determined  to  persist  in  doing  Sir,  the  whole  scheme  of  coercion  is 

impracticable.  It  is  contrary  to  the  genius  and  spirit  of  the  Constitution.  .  . 
.  .  .  My  voice  to-day  is  for  conciliation  ;  my  voice  is  for  compromise.  I  beg 
you,  gentlemen,  to  hear  that  voice.  If  you  will  not,  if  you  find  conciliation  im- 
possible ;  if  your  differences  are  so  great  that  you  cannot  or  will  not  compro- 
mise them,  then,  gentlemen,  let  the  seceding  States  depart  in  peace ;  let  them 
establish  their  government  and  empire,  and  work  out  their  destiny  according 
to  the  wisdom  which  God  has  given  them." 

And,  in  the  division  which  followed,  the  Democratic  members,  with  but 
four  exceptions,  registered  their  agreement  with  Mr.  Pendleton  in  a  solid 
body. 

It  was  for  such  doctrines  as  these  that  the  great  Democratic  Party  se- 
lected Mr.  Pendleton  as  its  standard  bearer  in  the  presidential  contest  of 
1864.  That  these  views  were  regarded  as  a  sure  passport  to  its  favor  is 
evident  when  we  see  them  advanced  by  so  shrewd  and  unscrupulous  a 


8 

politician  as  Mr.  William  B.  Reed,  who,  on  the  28th  of  March,  1863,  in 
an  address  to  the  Democratic  Central  Club  of  Philadelphia,  observed  : 

"  Had  the  Government  never  gone  beyond  the  limits  of  consent ;  had  it  re- 
jected, as  did  its  founders,  the  heresy  of  coercion,  as  applied  to  any  State 
or  combination  of  States,  it  would  have  been  far  stronger  in  the  elements  of 
republican  power,  than  it  is  now  in  all  the  panoply  and  parade  of  war." 

Even  three  years  of  war  did  not  suffice  to  cause  the  abandonment  of  this 

dogma.    The  Democratic  Convention  of  Kentucky,  assembled  June  28, 

1864,  to  select  delegates  to  the  Chicago  Convention,  adopted  a  series  of 

resolutions,  among  which  the  following  is  the  third  : 

"Guided  by  these  lights,  Ave  declare  that  the  coercion  and  subjugation  of 
eleven  or  more  sovereign  States  was  never  contemplated  as  possible  or  autlur- 
ized  by  the  Constitution,  but  was  pronounced  by  its  makers  an  act  of  suicidal 
folly/' 

And  Mr.  William  B.  Reed  reiterated  his  views  in  a  letter  to  a  sympa- 
thetic Mary  lander,  dated  November  5,  1864,  and  published  November  7, 
as  sound  Democratic  doctrine  by  the  Philadelphia  organ  of  the  party  : 

I  deny  as  I  have  ever  done  since  this  experiment  of  civil  war  has  awakened 
me  to  the  truth,  that  the  Federal  Government  has  any  right  under  the  Con- 
stitution to  coerce  by  force  of  arms  any  one  or  more  of  its  great  constituncies." 

PRO-SLAVERY  RECONSTRUCTION. 

So  far  from  maintaining  the  indissoluble  nature  of  the  Federal  bond, 
the  Democratic  Party  at  an  early  period  in  the  struggle  adopted  the  theory 
that  the  secession  of  the  South  absolved  the  remaining  States  from  all  fur- 
ther obligation  to  the  Constitution,  and  that  they  were  individually  at 
liberty  to  separate  and  set  up  for  themselves  or  form  new  connections  on 
such  terms  of  alliance  as  they  might  please.  There  can  be  but  little  doubt 
that  the  ultimate  object  of  this  scheme  was  to  reorganize  under  the  Mont- 
gomery Constitution,  whereby  the  old  supremacy  of  the  alliance  between 
slavery  and  democracy  might  be  restored,  and  the  domination  of  the 
party  be  perpetuated.  The  key-note  to  this  will  be  found  in  one  of  the 
resolutions  adopted  at  the  great  Democratic  meeting  in  Philadelphia,  held 
January  16,  1861.  We  have  the  authority  of  Mr.  William  B.  Reed,  for 
the  assertion  that  "  it  was  adopted  with  enthusiastic  unanimity/' 

"Resolved,  That  in  the  deliberate  judgment  of  the  Democracy  of  Philadel- 
phia, and,  so  far  as  we  know  it,  of  Pennsylvania,  the  dissolution  of  the  Union 
by  the  separation  of  the  whole  South,  a  result  we  shall  most  sincerely  deplore, 
may  release  this  Commonwealth  from  the  bonds  which  now  connect  it  with 
the  confederacy,  and  would  authorize  and  require  its  citizens,  through  a  conven- 
tion to  be  assembled  for  that  purpose,  to  determine  with  whom  their  lot  shall 
be  cast ;  whether  with  the  North  and  East  whose  fanaticism  has  precipitated 
this  misery  upon  us,  or  with  our  brethren  of  the  South,  whose  wrongs  we  feel 
as  our  own,  or  whether  Pennsylvania  shall  stand  by  herself,  ready,  when  oc- 
casion offers,  to  bind  together  the  broken  Union." 


9 


That  these  were  the  views  of  the  dominant  men  of  the  party  is  evident 
from  the  fact  that  Judge  Woodward  at  that  time  made  no  secret  of  his  de- 
sire that  Pennsylvania  should  go  with  the  South. 

So,  in  the  spring  of  1861,  ex-Governor  Price,  of  New  Jersey,  in  a  letter 
to  L.  W.  Burnet,  of  Newark,  argued  the  matter  thus : 

"  I  believe  the  Southern  Confederation  permanent.  The  proceeding  has  been 
taken  with  forethought  and  deliberation — it  is  no  hurried  impulse,  but  an  inevi- 
table act,  based  upon  the  sacred,  as  was  supposed,  '  equality  of  the  States  and 
in  my -opinion,  every  slave  State  will,  in  a  short  time,  be  found  united  in  one 
confederacy.  .  .  .  Before  that  event  happens,  we  cannot  act,  however  much  we 
may  suffer  in  our  material  interests.  It  is  in  that  contingency,  then,  that  I 
answer  the  second  part  of  your  question.  '  What  position  for  New  Jersey  will 
best  accord  with  her  interests,  honor,  and  the  patriotic  instincts  of  her  peo- 
ple/ I  say  emphatically,  they  would  go  with  the  South,  from  every  wise,  pruden- 
tial and  patriotic  reason." 

At  the  time  of  the  Chicago  Convention,  these  views  were  not  so  openly 
ventilated,  but  they  evidently  were  at  the  bottom  of  the  reconstruction  con- 
templated by  the  (l  cessation  of  hostilities"  and  "  convention  of  all  the 
States"  advocated  in  the  platform.  One  speaker,  however,  D.  II.  Mahoney, 
of  Dubuque,  Iowa,  was  bold  enough  to  enunciate  them,  and  they  were 
favorably  received, 

"  We  must  elect  our  candidate,  and  then,  holding  out  our  hands  to  the  South, 
invite  them  to  come  and  sit  again  in  our  Union  circle.  [A  voice — '  Suppose 
they  won't  come  ?']  If  they  will  not  come  to  us,  then  I  am  in  favor  of  going  to 
them."    [Loud  cheers.] 

And  the  Van  Buren  County  Press,  at  Paw-Paw,  Michigan,  declared; 

"  If  the  North  and  South  are  ever  re-united,  we  predict  it  will  be  when  the 
Confederate  States  North  adopt  their  new  ('Montgomery')  constitution,  or  some- 
thing very  near  like  it.    There's  a  good  time  coming  boys." 

DISUNION  CONVENTIONS. 

As  indicated  by  the  resolutions  quoted  above  from  the  Philadelphia 
platform  of  June  16th,  1861,  the  machinery  by  which  this  scheme  was  to 
be  carried  out,  was  that  of  conventions,  either  State  or  National.  The 
party  therefore  commenced  to  agitate  for  conventions.  The  experience 
of  the  South  had  shown  how  easy  it  was  under  skillful  manipulation,  with 
such  instruments,  to  carry  State  after  State  into  open  and  armed  opposition 
to  the  central  authority.  A  national  convention  might  reconstruct  the 
Union  on  a  Southern  basis  at  one  blow,  or  a  series  of  State  conventions  could 
accomplish  the  same  result  piecemeal,  while  crippling  fatally  the  Govern- 
ment in  its  struggle  with  rebellion.  The  machinery  of  the  party,  therefore, 
was  forthwith  set  to  work. 

As  early  as  July  15th;  1861,  the  project  was  broached  by  the  Hon. 


10 


Benjamin  "Wood  in  the  following  resolution  offered  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  which  received  the  vote  of  every  Democratic  member : 

"  Resolved,  That  this  Congress  recommend  the  Governors  of  the  several 
States  to  convene  their  Legislatures  for  the  purpose  of  calling  an  election  to 
select  two  delegates  from  each  Congressional  District,  to  meet  in  general  Con- 
vention at  Louisville  in  Kentucky,  on  the  first  Monday  in  September  next ; 
the  purpose  of  the  said  Convention  to  be  to  devise  measures  for  the  restoration 
of  peace  to  our  country." 

The  revolutionary  project  was  allowed  to  sleep  for  a  year,  when  the  dis- 
asters of  the  Peninsular  campaign  encouraged  an  attempt  to  revive  it. 

Mr.  William  B.  Heed  came  forward  to  feel  the  way.  In  August,  1862, 
he  published  his  "  Vindication/'  in  which  he  affected  to  believe  that  a  res- 
toration of  the  Union  was  impossible,  and  that  all  that  remained  for  us  was 
to  decide  upon  the  new  leagues  which  should  be  formed.  To  accomplish  this, 
he  preferred  separate  State  action. 

"  If  the  choice  be  between  a  continuance  of  the  war,  with  its  attendant  suf- 
ferings and  demoralization,  certain  miseries  and  uncertain  results,  and  a  recog- 
nition of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  I  am  in  favor  of  recognition,  of  course 
making  the  Abolition  Party  responsible  for  this  dread  necessity.  The  blood 
of  the  Union  is  on  them. 

"  If  it  be  a  choice  between  the  slow  but  ultimately  successful  conduct  of  the 
war,  the  subjugation  of  the  Southern  States,  their  tenure  as  mere  military  pro- 
vinces, involving  of  course  a  radical  change  in  the  political  organization  of  the 
triumphant  North,  so  as  virtually  to  abrogate  State  rights  and  create  a  central- 
ized domination  with  all  the  heresies  of  the  day  engrafted,  and  peaceable  recog- 
nition, I  still  prefer  recognition. 

"  If  the  inquiry  be  further  pressed  as  to  how  I  would  arrange  the  terms  of 

pacification  and  recognition  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that,  dodge  or  defer 

it  as  we  may,  in  my  opinion  the  decision — I  mean  as  to  limits  and  possibly  as 
to  debt — must  be  made  by  the  States  and  their  citizens,  acting  as  they  did, 
when  seventy  years  ago  they  entered  into  the  Federal  compact.  There  is  no 
other  conceivable  mode.  Maryland  and  Kentucky,  after  all,  each  for  herself, 
will  have  to  determine  where  her  lot  shall  be  cast,  and  what  her  pecuniary  li- 
ability must  be,  whether  for  a  share  of  the  Federal  or  of  the  Confederate  debt, 
or  whether  to  be  exempt  from  both.  What  Maryland  and  Kentucky  do,  Penn- 
sylvania and  Ohio  have  a  right  to  do.  This  settles  the  question  of  boundaries, 
and  nothing  else  will ;  and  if  the  decision  involves  the  abandonment  of  Wash- 
*  ington,  and  leaving  it  the  monument  of  what  was  once  the  Capital  of  a  great 
Republic,  be- it  so.    I  would  rather  see  it  a  ruin  than  what  it  is  now/' 

In  November,  Mr.  Reed  returned  to  the  charge,  and  openly  suggested 

the  raising  of  the  standard  of  revolt  by  the  Middle  States. 

"  Yet  should,  in  the  providence  of  God,  the  spirit  of  topical  fanaticism  which 
has  brought  all  this  misery  upon  us  still  maintain  its  sway,  it  may  be  the  des- 
tiny of  these  great  Middle  States  to  speak,  and  if  need  be  to  act,  in  self-defence 
in  maintenance  of  all  that  is  left  of  Constitutional  liberty  in  the  fragmentary 
and  shattered  Union  which  yet  survives.  They  may  act  together,  or  they  may 
act  separately.  Within  each  of  them  is  the  perfect  machinery  of  Government, 
and  all  that  is  wanting  is  an  animating  and  practical  spirit  of  local  loyalty.  It 
may  be  that  one  man  can  supply  that  spirit:  and  it  is  the  hope  that  these  fugi- 
tive words  of  earnest  suggestion  rather  than  of  counsel,  may  find  an  answer  in 
the  heart  of  the  people,  that  they  are  given  to  the  public/7 


These  utterances  are  valuable  as  affording  us  a  key  to  the  conferences 
between  Lord  Lyons,  the  English  Minister,  and  the  leading  Democrats 
of  New  York,  in  November,  1862.  The  party  had  been  elated  with  its 
success  in  carrying  the  State  of  New  York  a  few  days  before,  and  had  been 
both  depressed  and  irritated  by  the  dismissal  of  McClellan.  Lord  Lyons' 
official  disnatch  states  : 

"  Several  of  the  leaders  of  the  Democratic  Party  sought  interviews  with  me, 
both  before  and  after  the  arrival  of  the  intelligence  of  General  McClellan's  dis- 
missal. The  subject  uppermost  in  their  minds  while  they  were  speaking  to  me 
was  naturally  that  of  foreign  mediation  between  the  North  and  the  South. 
Many  of  them  appeared  to  think  that  this  mediation  must  come  at  last,  but  they 

appeared  to  be  very  much  afraid  of  its  coming  too  soon  I  gave  no  opinion 

on  the  subject.  I  did  not  say  whether  or  not  I  myself  thought  foreign  interven- 
tion probable  or  advisable  ;  but  I  listened  with  attention  to  the  account  given 
me  of  the  plans  and  hopes  of  the  Conservative  party.  At  the  bottom,  I  thought  I 
perceived  a  desire  to  put  an  end  to  the  war,  even  at  the  risk  of  losing  the  South- 
ern States  altogether  ;  but  it  was  plain  that  it  was  not  thought  prudent  to  avow 
this  desire.  Indeed,  some  hints  of  it  dropped  before  the  elections  were  so  ill- 
received,  that  a  strong  declaration  in  a  contrary  sense  was  deemed  necessary 
by  the  Democratic  leaders. 

"They  maintain  that  the  object  of  the  military  operations  should  be  to  place 
the  North  in  a  position  to  demand  an  armistice  with  honor  and  effect.  The 
armistice  should,  they  hold,  be  followed  by  a  Convention,  in  which  such  changes 
in  the  Constitution  should  be  proposed  as  would  give  the  South  absolute  secu- 
rity in  its  slave  property,  and  would  enable  the  North  and  the  South  to  reunite 
and  to  live  together  in  peace  and  harmony.  The  Conservatives  profess  to  think 
that  the  South  might  be  induced  to  take  part  in  such  a  Convention,  and  that  a 
restoration  of  the  Union  would  be  the  result.  The  most  sagacious  members  of 
the  party  must,  however,  look  upon  the  proposal  of  a  Convention  merely  as  a 
last  experiment  to  test  the  possibility  of  reunion.  They  are,  no  doubt,  well 
aware  that  the  more  probable  consequence  of  an  armistice  would  be  the  esta- 
blishment of  Southern  independence,  but  they  perceive  that  if  the  South  is  so 
utterly  alienated  that  no  possible  concessions  will  induce  it  to  return  volun- 
tarily to  the  Union,  it  is  wiser  to  agree  to  separation  than  to  prosecute  a  cruel 
and  hopeless  war. 

"  If  their  own  party  were  in  power,  or  virtually  controlled  the  Administra- 
tion, they  would  rather,  if  possible,  obtain  an  armistice  without  the  aid  of 
foreign  governments;  but  they  would  be  disposed  to  accept  an  offer  of  medi- 
ation, if  it  appeared  to  be  the  only  means  of  putting  a  stop  to  hostilities." 

These  humiliating  negotiations  with  the  agent  of  a  foreign  and  unfriendly 
power  show  that  Mr.  Reed  had  only  been  the  mouth-piece  of  the  secret 
councils  of  his  party.  He,  too,  had  urged  an  armistice  as  a  necessary  pre- 
liminary to  the  contemplated  surrender. 

"  I  would  begin  with  a  cessation  of  hostilities  and  an  armistice  for  a  fixed 

period,  not  too  short  If  arms  were  laid  down  for  a  time,  there  would  be 

a  repugnance  to  take  them  up  again,  which,  of  itself,  would  be  favorable  to 
satisfactory  adjustment." 

Thus  was  inaugurated  the  policy  of  a  "cessation  of  hostilities"  and  a 
Convention,  to  which  the  Democratic  party  steadily  adhered.  At  Chicago, 


12 


two  years  later,  it  formed  the  basis  of  the  platform,  and  in  November, 
1864,  it  was  indignantly  rejected  by  the  people.  During  those  two  years 
it  was  constantly  put  forward  that  the  people  might  become  accustomed  to 
it,  and  no  longer  dread  the  fearful  anarchy  which  would  be  its  almost 
necessary  result. 

Thus,  at  the  formal  inauguration  of  the  Democratic  Central  Club,  of 
Philadelphia,  with  which  the  party  celebrated  the  8th  of  January,  1863, 
the  orator  of  the  day,  Mr.  Charles  Ingersoll,  made  the  proposed  Conven- 
tion the  subject  of  his  discourse,  and  was  prepared  to  adopt  the  most  revo- 
lutionary means  of  attaining  the  object. 

"  There  is  but  one  way  of  arriving  at  a  solution  of  the  question  as  to  whether 
we  are  to  have  a  speedy  peace  and  union,  and  that  is  by  conventions  of  the 
people.  To  effect  this  is  not  easy  of  accomplishment,  because,  throughout  the 
North  there  are  many  States  in  possession  of  the  Republicans,  and  there  is 
hardly  any  State  in  which  the  Democrats  are  wholly  in  power.  In  this  State 
the  Democrats  have  the  Governor  and  Senate  against  them,  with  the  House  in 
their  favor.  Under  these  circumstances,  we  should  do  what  has  frequently  been 
resorted  to  in  England — we  should  refuse  the  supplies.  The  speaker  advocated 
this  measure  at  some  length  as  a  means  of  instituting  a  State  Convention.  This 
would  be  followed  by  Conventions  throughout  the  Northern  States.  We  should 
then  be  in  a  position  to  offer  our  terms  and  settle  with  the  South  this  great 
question.    Mr.  Ingersoll  concluded  amid  prolonged  applause." 

In  March,  Mr.  Ingersoll  again  urged  the  subject  in  an  address  delivered 
before  the  same  body,«md  on  the  28th  of  the  same  month,  Mr.  Reed  also 
recurred  to  it  on  a  similar  occasion.  His  remarks,  though  somewhat 
obscure,  are  fearfully  suggestive. 

"  The  path  which  I  desire  to  pursue  to  take  me  out  of  the  miseries  and  op- 
pressions upon  us  is  one  which  the  Constitution  prescribes — a  popular  Conven- 
tion— National,  if  it  can  be,  if  not  National,  a  State  Convention.  But  I  look 
upon  a  Convention  as  an  end,  not  as  a  means;  for,  as  a  means,  it  is  too  slow. 
We  shall  bleed  to  death  before  a  Convention  can  be  instituted.    Still,  it  is  a 

good  ultimate  result  Such  conventions  emanating  from  and  directly 

representing  the  people,  would  have  adequate  power.  They  would  be  as  the 
Convention  that  made  the  Constitution.  They  would  change,  modify,  abrogate." 

We  are  thus  prepared  to  understand  the  authorized  exposition  of  Demo- 
cratic policy,  as  published  to  the  world  at  Chicago,  and  can  appreciate  what 
was  meant  by  the  second  resolution  of  the  platform,  where  the  war  was 
explicitly  declared  to  have  been  a  failure 

"Resolved,  That  this  Convention  does  explicitly  declare,  as  the  sense  of  the 
American  people,  that,  after  four  years  of  failure  to  restore  the  Union  by  the 
experiment  of  war,  during  which,  under  the  pretence  of  a  military  necessity  of 
a  war  power  higher  than  the  Constitution,  the  Constitution  itself  has  been  dis- 
regarded in  every  part,  and  public  liberty  and  private  right  alike  trodden  down, 
and  the  material  prosperity  of  the  country  essentially  impaired,  justice,  hu- 
manity, liberty,  and  the  public  welfare  demand  that  immediate  efforts  be  made 
for  a  cessation  of  hostilities,  with  a  view  to  an  ultimate  Convention  of  all  the 


r 

States,  or  other  peaceable  means  to  the  end  that  at  the  earliest  practicable 
moment  peace  may  be  restored  on  the  basis  of  the  Federal  Union  of  the  States." 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  rebels,  in  their  terrible  straits,  hailed  the  "ray 
of  light  from  Chicago/'  There  is  a  wonderful  similarity  between  the 
words  of  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  when  treating  of  such  a  Convention  in 
his  letter  of  Oct.  16,  1864,  and  those  which  we  have  already  quoted  from 
Mr.  Reed's  "Vindication." 

"All  questions  of  boundaries,  confederacies  and  union  or  unions  would 
naturally  and  easily  adjust  themselves,  according  to  the  interests  of  parties  and 
the  exigencies  of  the  times.  Herein  lies  the  true  law  of  the  balance  of  power 
and  the  harmony  of  States." 

So,  too,  the  Hon.  TV.  TV.  Boyce,  of  South  Carolina,  in  a  letter  to  Jeffer- 
son Davis,  Sept.  29,  1864— 

"  I  think  our  only  hope  of  a  satisfactory  peace,  one  consistent  with  the  pre- 
servation of  free. institutions,  is  in  the  supremacy  of  this  (the  Democratic) 
party,  at  some  time  or  other.  Our  policy,  therefore,  is  to  give  this  party  all 
the  capital  we  can.  You  should,  therefore,  at  once,  in  my  opinion,  give  this 
party  all  the  encouragement  possible,  by  declaring  your  willingness  to  an  arm- 
istice and  a  Convention  of  all  the  States,  in  their  sovereign  capacity,  to  enter 
upon  the  subject  of  peace. 

"  It  may  be  said,  the  proposed  convocation  of  the  States  is  unconstitutional. 
To  this  I  reply,  we  can  amend  the  Constitution.  It  may  be  further  objected 
that  to  meet  the  Northern  States  in  convention  is  to  abandon  our  present  form 
of  government.  But  this  no  more  follows  than  that  their  meeting  us  implies 
an  abandonment  of  their  form  of  government.  A  Congress  of  the  States  in 
their  sovereign  capacity  is  the  highest  acknowledgment  of  the  principles  of 
State  Rights." 

Mr.  Stephens  was  suspected  of  being  weak  in  the  knees,  and,  on  Nov. 
14,  1864,  when  a  frank  exposition  of  his  views  could  no  longer  injure  the 
prospects  of  McClellan.  he  communicated  to  the  press  another  letter,  dated 
Nov.  5,  1864,  in  which  he  gave  his  reasons  for  desiring  the  Convention, 
as  proposed  at  Chicago.  A  paragraph  in  this  remarkable  document  shows 
in  the  clearest  light  the  results  expected,  North  and  South,  from  the  co- 
operation of  the  States  Eights  Democracy  with  rebellion,  and  the  fearful 
abyss  which  we  escaped  by  the  re-election  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 

"  There  is  no  prospect  of  such  proposition  (a  Convention  of  the  States) 
being  tendered,  unless  McClellan  should  be  elected.  He  cannot  be  elected 
without  carrying  a  sufficient  number  of  the  States,  which,  if  united  with  those 
of  the  Confederacy,  would  make  a  majority  of  the  States.  In  such  a  Conven- 
tion, then,  so  formed,  have  we  not  strong  reasons  to  hope  and  expect  that  a 
resolution  could  be  passed  denying  the  constitutional  power  of  the  Government, 
under  the  compact  of  1787,  to  coerce  a  State?  The  Chicago  platform  virtually 
does  this  already.  Would  not  such  a  convention  probably  reaffirm  the  Ken- 
tucky and  Virginia  resolutions  of  1798  and  1799  ?  Are  these  not  strong 
reasons,  at  least,  to  induce  us  to  hope  and  believe  that  they  might?  If  even 
that  could  be  done,  it  would  end  the  war.  It  would  recognize  as  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  American  institutions  the  ultimate  absolute  sovereignty  of 
the  several  States.  This  fully  covers  our  independence — as  fully  as  I  ever  wish 


14 


to  see  it  covered.  I  wish  no  other  kind  of  recognition,  whenever  it  comes,  than 
that  of  George  III.  of  England,  viz :  the  recognition  of  the  sovereignty  and  in- 
dependence of  each  State  separately  and  by  name." 

The  same  ground  was  taken  by  the  Hon.  H.  W.  Hilliard,  of  Georgia. 

"  It  seems  to  me  plain  that  we  should  accept  the  forum  indicated  by  the  Chi- 
cago Convention,  as  the  appropriate  one  for  the  settlement  of  our  troubles.  The 
very  proposal  to  refer  the  settlement  of  the  great  quarrel  to  the  arbitrament  of 
a  convention,  composed  of  delegates  from  all  the  States,  is  the  most  emphatic 
recognition  of  sovereignty  of  the  States.  They  would  assemble  as  sovereigns. 
They  would  discuss  the  grounds  of  difference  between  them  as  sovereigns. 
They  would  adjust  their  political  relations  independently.  Closing  their  de- 
liberations, they  would  refer  the  measures  they  had  matured  to  the  people  of 
the  several  States  for  final  action." 

Thus,  by  the  mere  fact  of  their  assembling,  the  Union  would  be  resolved 
into  a  mass  of  independent  jarring  nationalities,  and  they  would  then  pro- 
ceed, as  Mr.  Keed  told  us,  "to  change,  modify,  ABROGATE." 

SYMPATHY  WITH  THE  SOUTH. 

Entertaining  these  views,  and  cherishing  these  schemes,  it  was  natural 
that  the  Democracy  should  look  upon  the  Southern  leaders  with  sympathy 
and  respect,  and  should  endeavor  to  divert  the  antipathy  of  the  people 
from  them  to  the  Administration.  Thus  the  following,  from  the  Philadel- 
phia Age  of  Sept.  23,  1864;  palliates  the  rebellion  and  its  chief  by  esta- 
blishing a  parallel  with  the  Revolution  and  George  Washington. 

"  They  (the  Yankees)  have  lately  added  to  their  collection  the  Bible  of  Mary 
"Washington,  the  mother  of  a  certain  slaveholder  named  George,  who  made 
himself  notorious  some  years  back  in  a  little  rebellion  which  was  got  up  in  this 
country.  Mary's  Bible  was  very  properly  stolen  from  Arlington  and  carried 
to  New  England,  for  if  she  had  read  it  in  the  spirit  of  the  enlightened  thief 
whose  library  it  now  decorates,  she  would  have  taught  George  better  than  to 
hold  slaves  and  lead  rebellions." 

So  the  same  journal  of  Dec.  7,  1863,  in  commenting  on  General  Meigs 
account  of  the  battle  of  Lookout  Mountain,  observes — 

"  It  was  shining — this  full  moon  of  the  Tennessee  mountains — on  other  con- 
trasts. It  shines,  as  General  Meigs  is  quite  aware,  on  the  great  joker  at  "Wash- 
ington and  his  truculent  "War  Minister  —  and  it  shines,  too,  on  the  stern, 
attenuated  and  resolved  rebel  at  Richmond,  whom  General  Meigs,  of  all  men 
in  the  world,  would  be  most  sorry  to  encounter,  and  who,  when  the  name  of 
Meigs  and  others  are  mentioned,  must  thrill  sadly  on  this  world's  ingratitude." 

This  comparison  of  the  national  with  the  rebel  authorities,  to  the  dis- 
advantage of  the  former,  has  been  a  favorite  with  the  Democracy.  Thus 
the  same  journal,  the  Age,  of  Feb.  6,  1864,  inquires:  . 

u  Is  it  any  worse  to  fire  at  our  flag  than  it  is  to  fire  into  our  Constitution  ? 
....  And  now  we  take  upon  ourselves  to  say,  that  while  the  rebels,  at  Sum- 
ter, fired  at  the  flag,  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  his  sphere,  has  fired  into  the  Constitution, 


r 

and  has  literally  attempted  its  destruction.  If  the  rebels,  for  firing  at  the  flag, 
deserve  to  be  devastated  by  war,  what  punishment  should  be  visited  upon  the 
President  for  firing  into  the  Constitution  ?* 

And  Mr.  William  B.  Reed,  in  a  letter  to  the  Hon.  E.  F.  Chambers,  of 
Maryland,  published  in  the  Age,  Nov.  7,  1864,  draws  a  picture  of  the 
time  when,  in  case  Mr.  Lincoln  should  be  re-elected, 

"  Lee  and  Beauregard,  Johnson  and  Longstreet,  and  Breckinridge  and  Ewell 
and  Early  are  killed,  or  captured,  or  fled  to  the  mountains,  or  gone,  like  the 
unfortunate  but  gallant  Jacobites,  like  Berwick  and  Sarsfield,  into  foreign  ser- 
vice," while  "the  work  of  conquest,  or  even  subjugation,  if  that  be  the  wretched 
word,"  is  entrusted  "to  the  unsaturated  Molochs  whom  three  years  of  bloody, 
fruitless  warfare  have  not  satisfied." 

So  the  Philadelphia  Evening  Journal  of  Jan.  20,  1863,  commences  an 
elaborate  article  devoted  to  the  praises  of  Jefferson  Davis,  as  follows : 

"  The  third  annual  message  of  Jefferson  Davis  to  the  Confederate  Congress 
and  Abraham  Lincoln's  last  message  to  the  United  States  Congress,  provoke  a 
comparison  quite  damaging  to  the  intellectual  capacity  of  the  Federal  Presi- 
dent." 

At  the  great  ratification  meeting  of  the  Chicago  nominations,  held  in 
Philadelphia  Sept.  17,  1864,  the  Hon.  Emerson  Etheridge  made  a  speech, 
in  which  he  said,  as  officially  reported  in  the  Age, 

"  There  is  not  an  honest  man  in  my  State,  there  is  not  a  man  with  an  honest 
reputation  who  will  vote  for  Abraham  Lincoln.  [Laughter  and  cheers.]  They 
think  the  unlawful  despotism  of  Jefferson  Davis  is  no  more  unconstitutional 
and  dangerous  than  the  arbitrary  usurpations  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  [That's 
so,  and  applause.]  ....  Before  the  war,  no  Southern  man  ever  made  war 
upon  our  liberties  until  Northern  aggression  converted  them  from  our  friends 
to  our  foes,  and  to-day,  Abraham  Lincoln  stands,  according  to  his  own  confes- 
sion, as  much  opposed  to  the  restoration  of  the  Union  as  Jefferson  Davis.  Lin- 
coln says  they  cannot  come  back  unless  under  an  unconstitutional  condition, 
while  Jefferson  Davis  says  he  will  not  come  back  unless  he  can  have  his  own 
way.  Now  who  is  the  worst  traitor,  Jefferson  Davis  or  Abraham  Lincoln? 
[Cries  of  'Lincoln/  and  cheers.]" 

Even  the  Hon.  S.  S.  Cox,  of  Ohio,  who  was  the  leader  in  Congress  of 
what  was  called  the  War  Democracy,  while  professing  opposition  to  the 
rebels,  in  his  Chicago  speech  denounced  the  Administration  with  equal 
or  greater  bitterness. 

"For  less  offences  than  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  guilty  of,  the  English  people 
had  chopped  off  the  head  of  the  first  Charles.  In  his  opinion,  Lincoln  and 
Davis  ought  to  be  brought  t)  the  same  block  together.  The  other  day,  they 
arrested  a  friend  of  his,  a  member  of  Congress  from  Missouri,  for  saying,  in 
private  conversation,  that  Lincoln  was  no  better  than  Jeff.  Davis.  He  was 
ready  to  say  the  same  here  now  in  Chicago.  Let  the  minions  of  the  Adminis- 
tration object,  if  they  dare." 

At  a  Democratic  celebration  in  New  York,  April  13,  1865,  just  after 
Lee's  surrender,  and  the  day  before  the  assassination  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  Mr. 


16 

Edward  Ingersoll,  of  Philadelphia,  made  a  speech,  reported  in  full  in  the 
New  York  News,  in  which  he  said : 

"I  yield  to  no  man  in  sympathy  for  the  people  of  the  South — a  gallant  peo- 
ple struggling  nobly  for  their  liberty  against  as  sordid  and  vile  a  tyranny  as 
ever  proposed  the  degradation  of  our  race.  Nay,  I  go  further,  and  with  Jef- 
ferson, Madison,  and  Livingston,  I  fully  embrace  the  doctrine  of  secession  as 
an  American  doctrine,  without  the  element  of  which  American  institutions 
cannot  permanently  live." 

Thus,  in  the  beginning,  the  Democracy  invited  secession,  and,  to  the 
end,  it  encouraged  rebellion  with  sympathy  and  prospects  of  ultimate  suc- 
cess. Let  us  now  turn  to  the  relations  held  by  the  party  to  the  Govern- 
ment which  was  fighting  the  desperate  battle  for  national  life. 


17 


II.— OPPOSITION. 

Every  measure  adopted  by  the  Administration  to  suppress  the  rebellion 
was  honored  by  the  hearty  opposition  of  the  Democracy,  which  spared  no 
effort  to  influence  the  people  against  those  to  whom  was  entrusted  the  safety 
of  the  nation  during  its  hour  of  trial.  The  war  itself  received  their  heartiest 
condemnation. 

THE  DEMOCRACY  A  PEACE  PARTY. 

It  is  true  there  was  a  wing  of  the  party,  known  as  "War  Democrats/'  but 
they  were  powerless,  and  such  as  attempted  independence  of  action  were 
promptly  read  out  of  the  party.  The  peace  men  controlled  the  organiza- 
tion and  policy  of  the  party,  and  the  war  men  never  failed  to  support  them 
at  the  polls.  Practically,  the  party  was  a  unit  in  favor  of  peace  \  and  in 
this  it  was  consistent  from  first  to  last. 

At  the  great  Democratic  meeting  of  January  16,  1861,  at  Philadelphia, 
the  ninth  resolution  adopted  declared, 

""We  are  therefore  utterly  opposed  to  any  such  compulsion  as  is  demanded 
by  a  portion  of  the  Republican  Party ;  and  the  Democratic  Party  of  the  North 
-will,  by  the  use  of  all  constitutional  means,  and  with  its  moral  and  political 
influence,  oppose  any  such  extreme  policy,  or  a  fratricidal  war  thus  to  be 
inaugurated." 

And  a  month  later,  at  the  Democratic  State  Convention,  held  at  Harris- 
burg,  February  22,  1861,  the  following  resolution  "was  received  with  the 
most  rapturous  applause,  nearly  all  the  members  of  the  Convention  rising, 
cheering,  and  waving  their  hats." 

"Resolved,  That  we  will,  by  all  proper  and  legitimate  means,  oppose,  dis- 
countenance and  prevent  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  Republicans  in  power 
to  make  any  armed  aggression  upon  the  Southern  States,  especially  so  long  as 
laws  contravening  their  rights  shall  remain  unrepealed  on  the  statute  books  of 
Northern  Stales,  and  so  long  as  the  just  demands  of  the  South  shall  continue 
to  be  unrecognized  by  the  republican  majorities  in  these  States,  and  unsecured 
by  proper  amendatory  explanations  of  the  Constitution." 

It  was  in  precisely  the  same  spirit  that  Benjamin  G-.  Harris,  a  Demo- 
cratic member  of  Congress  from  Maryland,  on  April  9,  1864,  had  the 
effrontery  to  declare  in  the  House  of  Representatives  : 

"  The  South  asked  you  to  let  them  go  in  peace.    But  no ;  you  said  you  would 
bring  them  into  subjection.    That  is  not  done  yet,  and  God  Almighty  grant 
that  it  never  may  be.    I  hope  that  you  will  never  subjugate  the  South." 
2 


is 


This  being  good  Democratic  doctrine,  it  is  not  surprising  that,  with  one 
exception,  the  Democratic  members  voted  in  a  solid  body  against  Mr. 
Harris'  expulsion,  nor  that,  when  he  was  sent  as  a  delegate  to  the  Chicago 
Convention,  he  was  received  there  as  a  member  of  the  party,  in  full  com- 
munion and  good  standing. 

At  Chicago,  indeed,  Mr.  Harris  found  himself  among  congenial  spirits. 
There  the  llev.  C.  Chauncey  Burr,  of  New  Jersey,  publicly  declared, 

"  You  cannot  have  the  face  to  ask  the  South  to  come  back  into  the  Union  until 
you  withdraw  your  marauding  army.  Is  there  a  man  in  this  audience  that 
wants  to  have  one  half  of  the  States  conquered  and  subjected  ?  [No.]  When 
this  is  done  you  have  ended  the  Government.  After  three  years  of  war,  who 
are  conquered,  you  or  the  South  ?  I  say  you  are  conquered.  You  cannot  con- 
quer the  South,  and  I  pray  God  you  never  may." 

James  S.  Rollins,  of  Missouri : 

"  I  love  our  Southern  friends ;  they  are  a  noble,  a  brave,  and  a  chivalrous 
people  [cheers],  although  they  are  trying  to  break  up  the  Government ;  and 
however  much  we  may  hate  them,  we  must  remember  that  they  are  our 
countrymen,  and  cannot  be  subdued  so  long  as  we  insist  upon  depriving  them 
of  their  rights.'" 

John  J.  Van  Allen,  of  New  York : 

"  War  is  disunion.  War  could  never  produce  peace.  It  was  impossible 
to  subjugate  eight  millions  of  people,  and  it  ought  not  to  be  done,  if  it  could 
be  done/' 

In  fact,  the  Chicago  Convention  was  a  peace  convention,  of  which  the 
ruling  spirit  was  Vallandigham.  He  framed  the  second  resolution  of  the 
platform,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  regarded  at  the  South  as  tanta- 
mount to  recognition  of  their  independence.  In  his  Chicago  letter  of  Oc- 
tober 22,  1864,  he  boasted  that,  in  the  Committee  on  Platform,  it  received 
fifteen  votes  out  of  eighteen ;  and  in  his  speech  at  Sydney,  Ohio,  he  stated 
that  an  amendment,  suggesting  the  alternative  of  war,  in  case  of  the  fail- 
ure of  "  peaceable  means/'  was  unanimously  rejected.  So  well  was  he 
satisfied  with  the  result,  that,  while  yet  fresh  from  Chicago,  in  his  Dayton 
speech,  of  September  6,  he  exultingly  exclaimed : 

"  That  convention  has  met  every  expectation  of  mine.  The  promises  have 
all  been  realized.  The  convention  was  emphatically  not  only  a  peaceable  but 
a  peace  convention.  It  was  a  peace  convention  ;  and,  speaking  in  the  name  of 
more  than  twenty  millions  of  freemen,  it  demanded  peace  after  the  failure  of 
the  experiment  of  war.  No  man  among  the  earnest  advocates  of  peace,  from 
the  beginning  of  the  war  till  this  hour,  has  in  any  formal  public  declaration 
demanded  more  than  that  convention  has  declared.  It  meant  peace,  and  it 
said  so.  It  meant,  and  it  means  now,  that  there  shall  be  no  more  civil  war  in 
this  land.;; 

Mr.  Vallandigham  was  justified  in  this  assertion,  not  only  by  the  plat- 


19 


form,  but  by  the  temper  of  the  Convention,  as  shown  by  the  speeches  of 
its  members  and  hangers  on.    Thus  Mr.  Gr.  C.  Sanderson  exclaimed, 

"  Is  it  not  time  that  this  infernal  war  should  stop  ?  [Cries  of  yes.]  Has 
there  not  been  blood  enough  shed?  Has  there  not  been  property  enough  des- 
troyed ?  Have  we  not  all  been  bound,  hand  and  foot,  to  the  abolition  car  that 
is  rolling  over  our  necks  like  another  Juggernaut.  .  .  .  We  must  have  peace. 
Peace  is  our  motive;  nothing  but  peace.  If  the  Southern  Confederacy,  by 
any  possibility,  be  subjugated  by  the  abolition  administration,  the  next  thing 
they  would  turn  their  bayonets  on  the  freemen  of  the  North,  and  trample  you 
in  the  dust." 

And  the  Hon.  James  H.  Reed,  of  Indiana : 

"  The  will  of  the  people  is  declared  for  peace,  and  in  this  declaration  there  is 
nothing  tending  to  folly,  inasmuch  as  in  the  coming  election  they  intend  to 
oust  the  incumbents  of  office,  and  to  inaugurate  a  rule  which  will  bring  peace 
and  prosperity  once  more  to  this  land." 

So  the  Rev.  J.  A.  McMaster,  of  New  York  : 

"  Let  us  demand  a  cessation  of  the  sacrifice  until  the  people  shall  pronounce 
their  great  and  emphatic  verdict  for  peace,  and  let  the  tyrant  understand  the 
demand  comes  from  earnest  men  and  must  be  respected.  We  are  often  called 
the  '  Unterrified.'  I  trust  you  are.  I  hope  that  your  nerves  may  be  of  steel, 
for  there  is  a  day  of  trial  coming  and  you  must  meet  it." 

It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  multiply  examples  of  this  seditious  peace 
spirit  in  the  convention,  and  we  will  content  ourselves  with  a  few  indica- 
tions of  the  mode  in  which  the  party  elsewhere  endorsed  it. 

Thus  at  the  McClellan  Ratification  Meeting,  held  in  New  York,  August 
30,  1864,  every  speaker  declared  in  favor  of  peace,  denounced  the  draft, 
and  congratulated  the  party  that  it  had  finally  and  definitely  accepted  the 
peace  policy.  Mr.  James  Brooks  exclaimed,  "  No  more  fighting ;  fighting 
will  never  restore  the  Union;  fighting  and  cuffing  make  no  friends." 
Judge  Daly  "  thought  there  was  a  possibility  of  a  peace  and  a  preservation 
of  the  Union  through  a  compromise."  Mr.  Nelson  Smith  told  the  crowd 
of  admiring  Democrats : 

"  The  question  now  is,  whether  after  four  years  of  war  this  Union  can  be 
saved  without  any  further  prosecution  of  the  war.  .  .  .  After  four  years  of 
war,  we  must  now  resort  to  some  other  means  than  war,  by  which  our  troubles 
can  be  settled  and  peace  restored — that  peace  is  received  as  the  duty  of  the  in- 
coming administration,  a  cessation  of  hostilities,  and  a  convention  of  the  two 
people  of  this  country,  to  see  if  they  cannot  settle  this  matter." 

Mr.  Conrad  Swackhammer  assured  his  applauding  auditors  that, 

"  George  B.  McClellan  will  be  the  next  president,  and  within  twenty-four 
hours  after  that  election  peace  will  be  declared.  We  are  tired  and  sick  of 
calls  for  500,000  more  men  by  those  who  have  no  thought  but  for  slavery.  I 
hope  in  November  you  will  all  go  forth,  not  with  a  musket  to  take  your  brother's 
life,  but  to  cast  a  little  white  ballot  for  McClellan  and  Pendleton,  and  thus  this 
war  will  be  stopped.    This  war  will  be  ended  by  diplomacy." 


Mr.  Robert  C.  Hutchins  declared  that, 

u  The  people  demand  some  other  means  of  restoring  the  Union  than  that  of 
war,  and  believe  that  a  restoration  can  be  reached  by  peaceable  means,  and 
not  by  massacre.  War  and  only  war  can  never  restore  the  Union  ;  an  armis- 
tice may,  but  a  million  of  men  cannot ;  it  has  been  proved  that  an  armed  force 
cannot." 

Mr.  William  G.  Gover  said  : 

"  I  am  in  favor  of  an  armistice,  and  believe  that  we  can  settle  our  difficulties 
better  by  diplomacy  than  we  can  by  the  bayonet  and  the  sword." 

Mr.  John  L.  Overfield  exhorted  his  hearers  : 

"  Now,  gentlemen,  you've  but  to  look  this  matter  in  the  face  and  say  whether 
you  will  pay  these  high  prices,  and  be  drafted  and  torn  from  the  bosoms  of 
your  families.  [Cries,  No,  no.]  Will  you  be  torn  from  these,  or  will  you  stay 
at  home  and  train  your  children  up  ;  that,  gentlemen',  is  to  be  decided  next 
November." 

And  the  great  peace  organ,  the  New  York  News,  rejoiced  over  the 
authoritative  exposition  of  its  favorite  principles,  as  follows : 

"  We  accept  the  platform  of  the  Convention  as  a  great  triumph  of  the  peace 
party.  The  proposition  for  an  armistice  and  a  convention  of  all  the  States,  as 
suggested  several  months  ago  by  The  News,  has  received  the  sanction  of  the 
Democracy  through  their  delegates,  and  the  peace  men  may  rest  assured  that 
that  proposition,  carried  into  eflPect,  will  bring  about  an  enduring  peace  be- 
tween the  sections.  The  nominee  of  the  Chicago  Convention  for  the  presidency 
is  not  the  candidate  of  our  preference,  but,  standing  upon  the  platform  upon 
which  he  has  been  nominated,  and  .  .  .  being  assured  that  -with  the  election 
of  General  McClellan  the  war  will  end,  we  will  support  the  nominations  made 
at  Chicago,  from  this  hour  until  the  close  of  the  polls  in  November. 

"  The  nominee  for  the  Vice  Presidency  is  the  man  of  all  men,  whom,  had 
the  choice  been  ours,  we  would  have  selected.  In  the  nomination  of  George 
H.  Pendleton,  a  tribute  has  been  worthily  offered  to  the  peace  sentiment,  of 
which  he  has  been  a  consistent  champion." 

It  is  true  that  General  McClellan  made  a  feeble  attempt  to  justify  the 
War  Democrats  in  their  support  of  him  by  some  generalities  in  his  letter 
of  acceptance,  but  he  was  speedily  given  to  understand  that,  as  James 
Buchanan  said,  he  was  a  platform  and  not  a  man.  Thus  Fernando  Wood 
in  a  meeting  held  September  17,  in  New  York,  assured  his  hearers : 

';  Besides  if  elected,  I  am  satisfied  he  will  entertain  the  views,  and  execute 
the  principles  of  the  great  party  he  will  represent,  without  regard  to  those  he 
may  himself  possess.  He  will  thus  be  our  agent,  the  creature  of  our  voice,  and 
as  such  cannot  if  he  would,  and  would  not  if  he  could,  do  otherwise  than  execute 
the  public  voice  of  the  country." 

So  at  the  great  Ratification  Meeting  held  in  Philadelphia  on  the  same 
day,  Mr.  George  M.  Wharton  laid  down  the  received  rule  of  party  dis- 
cipline : — 


"  The  platform  of  the  Chicago  Convention  stands  before  the  American  people 


r 


21 


as  the  political  creed  of  the  Democratic  Party  in  the  existing  crisis  of  the  country. 
It  must  necessarily  be  the  rule  of  practice  of  every  one  who  accepts  a  nomina- 
tion under  it." 

Mr.  Yallandigham  himself,  the  great  apostle  of  a  submission  peace,  in 
his  Dayton  speech  of  September  7,  said  of  McClellan  : 

"I  accept  him  as  presented  by,  and  support  him  to  carry  out — as  I  know  he 
will  carry  out — the  doctrines  and  principles  enunciated  in  that  Convention, 
which  are  now  the  demand  of  the  people  of  the  United  States." 

And  the  Indianapolis  Sentinel  proclaimed  for  its  party  candidate, 

"His  programme  will  be  a  cessation  of  hostilities  and  an  attempt  to  restore 
the  Union  by  compromise  and  reconciliation  ;  or,  failing  in  that,  taking  the  last 
extreme — recognition." 

DENUNCIATION  OF  THE  WAR. 

The  Democracy  from  the  first  having  denounced  the  war  as  unconstitu-  • 
tional,  unlawful,  and  hopeless,  were  not  likely  to  soften  their  opposition 
to  it  as  it  progressed.  If  its  fortunes  were  adverse,  it  afforded  an  oppor- 
tunity of  unlimited  abuse  of  the  Administration  ;  if  our  arms  were  success- 
ful, it  threatened  to  destroy  their  hopes  of  a  pro-slavery  reconstruction, 
and  their  bitterness  was  intensified ;  while  the  sacrifices  entailed  by  the 
struggle  formed  an  inexhaustible  theme  for  appealing  to  the  worst  passions 
of  the  people. 

At  a  great  meeting  of  the  party,  held  in  Philadelphia,  September  17, 

1863,  to  commemorate  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  Mr.  Joel  Cook 
declared,  and  his  remarks,  according  to  the  party  organ,  were  received  with 
great  enthusiasm : 

"  I  do  not  wish  in  these  days  to  see  the  flow  of  blood,  or  hear  the  din  of 
battle  ;  to  have  my  property  seized  for  taxes  or  mortgaged  to  secure  an  immense 
national  debt,  or  to  know  that  my  friei.ds  or  neighbors,  or  perhaps  myself,  can 

be  dragged  off  by  conscription  laws  to  light  against  their  brethren   I 

cannot  regard  a  great  victory  over  my  brethren  as  anything  but  food  for  melan- 
choly reflection." 

In  the  same  mood,  Mayor  Gunther,  the  representative  of  New  York,  the 
great  headquarters  of  the  Democracy,  in  his  message  of  September  29, 

1864,  vetoing  the  resolutions  to  illuminate  in  honor  of  Sheridan's  victories 
in  the  Valley : 

"  I  yield  to  no  man  in  my  attachment  to  the  Union  as  it  was  and  the  Con- 
stitution as  it  is,  but  as  the  President  demands  of  the  Southern  people  to  abandon 
the  rights  which  the  Constitution  confers,  I  do  not  see  how  those,  who  have 
always  held  that  the  Federal  Government  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  domestic 
institutions  of  the  States,  can  be  expected  to  rejoice  over  victories  which,  what- 
ever they  may  be,  surely  are  not  Union  victories." 

So,  at  the  Syracuse  Convention,  held  August  18,  1864,  preliminary  to 


22 

that  at  Chicago,  among  the  resolutions  adopted  denouncing  the  Adminis- 
tration, we  find  the  following  : 

"  It  has,  and  is  still  waging  a  hloody  and  relentless  war  fur  the  avowed  pur- 
pose of  exterminating  eight  millions  of  freemen  from  the  homes  of  their  fathers, 
and  blotting  out  from  the  American  constellation  one-half  of  the  States  of  the 
Union.  It  has  sought  to  arouse  and  enlist  the  most  wicked  and  malignant 
passions,  reckless  of  all  ends  if  it  but  subvert  the  existing  Government  and 
immolate  American  citizens/' 

The  Ashland,  Ohio,  Union,  a  paper  warmly  supported  by  the  Democratic 
organization  of  its  region,  could  scarcely  find  words  too  bitter  to  describe 
our  armies : 

"  Hired  Hessians  going  to  the  sunny  Southern  soil  to  butcher  by  wholesale 
not  foreigners,  but  good  men,  as  exemplary  Christians  as  any  of  our  own  men. 
.  .  .  This  is  a  damned  abolition  war.  We  believe  Abe  Lincoln  is  as  much  of 
a  traitor  as  Jeff.  Davis." 

In  a  speech  before  the  Lansing  (Michigan)  Democratic  Association,  in 
March,  18G3,  Mr.  George  W.  Peck  declared, 

"  You  black  Republicans  began  this  war.  You  have  carried  it  on  for  two 
years.  You  have  sent  your  heil  hounds  down  South  to  devastate  the  country, 
and  what  have  vou  done?  You  have  not  conquered  the  South  ;  you  never  can 
conquer  it.    And  why?    Because  they  are  our  brethren." 

A  tract,  extensively  circulated  by  the  Democratic  Committee  of  Penn- 
sylvania, in  the  canvass  of  1864,  thu^  addressed  the  citizens  of  the  State : 

"  Farmers, — men  of  the  rural  regions!  This  abolition  business  has  mort- 
gaged your  farms  forever  to  the  rich  men  of  this  country  and  Europe  for  every 
penny  the  lands  are  worth  ;  and  you  will  have  to  pay  the  interest  of  this  mort- 
gage annually,  in  the  form  of  heavy  and  ever  increasing  taxes.  This,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  chance  of  being  yourselves  or  of  having  your  sons  or  relatives  dragged 
away  by  the  Draft,  to  meet  danger  or  perhaps  death  on  the  battlefield  !  All, 
to  set  loose  upon  the  country  a  parcel  of  brutal  Africans,  who,  for  all  they  can 
ever  hope,  here  or  hereafter,  are  better  off  in  their  present  homes  than  any- 
where else  in  the  world,  or  than  they  would  be  in  Africa  itself." 

At  the  Chicago  Convention,  of  course,  this  feeling  found  full  and  free 
expression.    The  Rev.  C.  Chauncey  Burr  exclaimed, 

"  We  had  no  right  to  burn  their  wheat  fields,  steal  their  pianos,  spoons  or 
jewelry.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  stolen  a  good  many  thousand  negroes,  but  for  every 
negro  he  had  thus  stolen,  he  had  stolen  ten  thousand  spoons.  It  had  been 
said  that  if  the  South  would  lay  down  their  arms  they  would  be  received  back 
into  the  Union.  The  South  could  not  honorably  lay  down  her  arms,  for  she 
was  fighting  for  her  honor.  Two  millions  of  men  had  been  sent  down  to  the 
slaughter  pens  of  the  South,  and  the  army  of  Lincoln  could  not  again  be  filled, 
neither  by  enlistments  nor  conscription.  If  he  ever  uttered  a  prayer,  it  was 
that  no  one  of  the  States  of  the  Union  should  be  conquered  and  subjugated." 

And  Mr.  Henry  Clay  Dean  : 

"  For  over  three  years  Lincoln  had  been  calling  for  men,  and  they  had  been 


given.  But  with  all  the  vast  armies  placed  at  his  command  he  had  failed  ! 
failed!!  failed!!!  FAILED!!!!  Such  a  failure  had  never  been  known. 
Such  destruction  of  human  life  had  never  been  known  since  the  destruction  of 
Sennacherib  by  the  breath  of  the  Almighty.  And  still  the  monster  usurper 
wanted  more  men  for  his  slaughter  pens.  .  .  .  Ever  since  the  usurper,  traitor 
and  tyrant  had  occupied  the  presidential  chair,  the  Republican  Party  had 
shouted  war  to  the  knife,  and  the  knife  to  the  hilt.  Blood  had  flowed  in  tor- 
rents, and  yet  the  thirst  of  the  old  monster  was  not  quenched.  His  cry  was 
for  more  blood." 

Entertaining  these  views  with  respect  to  the  war,  of  course  the  efforts 

of  the  party  were  directed  to  render  it  unpopular,  and  to  oppose  every 

measure  necessary  for  its  continuance  and  success.     The  Hon.  D.  W. 

Voorhies,  of  Indiana,  understood  this  when  in  an  address  to  his  constituents 

in  April,  1861,  he  promised  them : 

"I  say  to  you,  my  constituents,  that  as  your  representative,  I  will  never 
vote  one  dollar,  one  man  or  one  gun  to  the  Administration  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
to  make  war  upon  the  South/' 

In  this,  Mr.  Yoorhees  merely  gave  expression  to  the  received  policy  of 
his  party  as  constantly  recorded  in  the  proceedings  of  Congress.  It  would 
require  too  much  space  to  trace  the  opposition  more  or  less  disguised  with 
which  every  financial  and  military  measure  was  obstructed  by  Democratic 
members,  and  it  will  be  sufficient  to  mention  a  test  vote  taken  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,  December  17.  1863,  on  the  following  resolu- 
tion of  the  Hon.  Green  Clay  Smith,  of  Kentucky  : 

"  That  we  hold  it  to  be  the  duty  of  Congress  to  pass  all  necessary  bills  to 
supply  men  and  money,  and  the  duty  of  the  people  to  render  every  aid  in  their 
power  to  the  constituted  authorities  of  the  Government  in  the  crushing  out  of 
the  rebellion,  and  in  bringing  the  leaders  thereof  to  condign  punishment." 

On  this  simple  proposition,  in  a  full  House,  the  vote  on  the  Democratic 
side  was  three  yeas  to  sixty-five  nays.  And  the  pledge  thus  given  for  the 
party  has  been  faithfully  curried  out  in  every  detail. 

OPPOSITION  TO  VOLUNTEERING. 

Thus,  when  the  country  depended  upon  volunteers  to  keep  the  ranks  of 
the  Union  armies  full,  Democrats  in  their  zeal  constantly  exposed  them- 
selves to  the  penalties  of  the  law  by  discouraging  and  dissuading  men  from 
enlisting.  Their  arguments  are  well  put  by  the  Grand  Rapids  (Michigan) 
Enquirer,  in  1861. 

"  The  Democrats  and  the  South  have  no  quarrel ;  why  then  should  we  be 
called  upon  to  assault  and  murder  our  friends  and  desolate  their  lands  ?  It 
seems  unreasonable  that  sensible  men  should  ask  such  a  thing.  If  we  remain 
passive  in  this  contest,  these  Abolitionists  ought  to  be  satisfied.  Again  we  say, 
Democrats  ponder  well  before  you  enlist." 

Even  the  smallest  incidents  were  taken  advantage  of  to  keep  Democrats 


from  volunteering,  both  from  opposition  to  the  war  and  a  desire  to  keep  up 
the  party  strength  at  home.  Thus  the  Philadelphia  Agey  of  November  2, 
1863,  on  learning  that  the  defeat  of  Vallandigham  in  Ohio  had  caused 
rejoicing  in  Rosecrans'  army,  says  : 

"  Every  Democrat,  therefore,  who  volunteers  and  happens  to  get  into  the 
Department  of  the  Cumberland,  must  expect  to  join  in  '  three  times  three' 
whenever  his  party  is  defeated.  .  .  .  We  know  that  in  this  State  we  outnum- 
ber and  outmatch  them  ;  but,  although  they  may  be  unable  to  cut  all  of  our 
throats,  why,  we  can  commit  suicide.    Let  us  hasten  to  do  it." 

If  these  were  the  orthordox  Democratic  views  on  the  subject  of  volun- 
teering, it  is  easy  to  imagine  how  bitter  were  their 

DENUNCIATIONS  OF  THE  DRAFT. 

It  might  have  been  thought  that  the  New  York  Democratic  draft  riots,  in 
July,  1863,  in  which  Governor  Seymour  addressed  the  mob  as  his  "  noble 
hearted  friends,"  would  have  proved,  a  terrible  warning  of  the  results  of 
thus  working  on  the  passions  of  the  multitude.  It  would  appear,  however, 
as  though  their  only  influence  was  to  excite  regret  at  their  prompt  sup- 
pression, for  they  were  immediately  followed  by  a  systematic  process  of 
again  stimulating  opposition  to  the  point  of  resistance.  Scarcely  was  the 
month  out,  when  the  "New  York  States'  Rights  Association"  published 
a  "Declaration"  in  which  it  took  the  ground  that, 

"Whenever  the  sovereignity  of  the  State  is  invaded,  and  the  rights  essential 
to  its  existence  are  usurped,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Governor  to  take  official, 
prompt,  and  public  notice  of  the  wrong  and  danger,  and  forthwith  prepare  to 
maintain  its  sovereignity,  if  needs  be,  with  all  the  power  of  'the  State.  .  .  . 
The  act  commonly  called  the  Conscript  Act  does  invade  the  sovereignity  and 
jurisdiction  of  this  State,  and  usurp  rights  essential  to  its  existence.  We  de- 
nounce it  as  contrary  to  the  fundamental  rights  and  liberties  of  the  land,  un- 
equal in  the  distinction  it  makes  between  the  rich  and  the  poor;  oppressive  in 
its  compulsory  provisions,  whereby  the  freemen  of  this  State  are  illegally  com- 
pelled to  go  out  of  the  State  to  fight,  being  a  forced  military  service  never 
before  demanded  or  claimed  by  the  Federal  Government.  We  denounce  the 
whole  Act  in  its  general  intent  and  purport,  and  its  special  provisions,  as 
despotic,  harsh,  unjust  and  illegal.  We  therefore  call  upon  the  Governor 
to  '  maintain  and  defend  the  sovereignty  and  jurisdiction  of  the  State/  and 
to  protect  the  people  in  their  rights  and  liberties  from  this  most  odious  and 
intolerable  oppression." 

Governor  Seymour  was  quite  ready  to  go  as  far  as  he  dared  in  response 
to  this  appeal.    In  his  letter  of  August  9,  1863,  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  he  says  : 

"  It  is  believed  by  at  least  one-half  of  the  people  of  the  loyal  States  that  the 
Conscription  Act,  which  they  are  called  upon  to  obey  because  it  is  on  the 
Statute  Book,  is  in  itself  a  violation  of  the  supreme  constitutional  law.  There 
is  a  fear  and  suspicion  that  while  they  are  threatened  with  the  severest  penal- 
ties of  the  law  they  are  to  be  deprived  of  its  protection.  ...  I  do  not  dwell 
upon  what  I  believe  would  be  the  consequence  of  a  violent,  harsh  policy  before 


25 


the  constitutionality  of  the  Act  is  tested.  You  can  scan  the  immediate  future 
as  well  as  I.    The  temper  of  the  people  to-day  you  can  readily  learn." 

The  significance  of  these  scarcely  veiled  threats  is  apparent  from  a  call 
made  to  the  citizens  of  the  Nineteenth  Ward,  New  York,  to  raise  a  regi- 
ment of  National  Guards 

"  To  be  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  Governor  at  the  earliest  possible  moment, 
either  to  repel  a  foreign  foe,  ov  to  maintain  the  rights  of  the  Empire  State  ;  an 
invasion  or  usurpation  would  be  equally  obnoxious ;  therefore,  as  we  value 
liberty,  so  let  us  be  vigilant." 

This  dangerous  temper  of  the  people  was  carefully  fostered  by  the  Demo- 
cratic press.  Even  the  organ  of  the  professed  War  Democrats,  the  New 
York  Leader,  lent  its  aid  to  sedition.  In  speaking  of  the  examination  of 
claimants  for  exemption,  it  exclaimed,  August  15,  1863, 

"The  story  of  "Wat  Tyler  taught  our  British  ancestors  the  danger  of  com- 
bining indecency  with  tyranny.  Have  our  rulers  forgotten  the  lesson,  or  does 
our  degeneracy  justify  the  contempt  with  which  they  treat  it?" 

Mr.  William  B.  Reed,  of  course,  was  not  behind  hand  in  the  endeavor 
to  render  the  law  odious.  In  his  Meadville  speech,  September  17,  1863, 
he  remarked : 

"  Now  what  shall  I  say  of  the  other  Federal  centralizing  device,  by  which 
uniforms  are  forced  on  the  backs  of  those  who  do  not  wish  to  fight,  and  a  heavy 
tax  is  laid,  not  according  to  any  principle  of  law  or  Constitution,  but  by  lot. 
This,  it  will  be  admitted,  is  a  very  imperial  sort  of  decree,  by  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
declares  every  able  bodied  citizen  of  Pennsylvania,  from  eighteen  to  forty-five, 
a  soldier  in  his  army, — to  be  handcuffed,  if  need  be, — to  be  put  in  any  regiment 
he  chooses,  and  to  be  relieved  from  service  only  by  paying  into  his  treasury  a 
tax  of  three  hundred  dollars." 

No  time  was  lost  in  getting  a  decision  adverse  to  the  Act,  and  on  Novem- 
ber 10,  the  Democratic  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Pennsylvania, 
Lowrie,  Woodward,  and  Thompson,  pronounced  it  unconstitutional.  The 
use  made  of  this  judgment  was  promptly  shown  by  the  Philadelphia  Age 
of  November  12,  which  said  of  the  Enrollment  Act :  "  It  ceases  to  be  a 
law,  and  it  becomes  the  duty  of  every  good  citizen  to  resist  its  enforce- 
ment." At  that  time,  the  draft  was  indicated  for  January  5,  1864,  and 
lest  the  people  under  its  pressure  should  endeavor  to  avert  it  by  volun- 
teering, the  Age  proceeded  to  argue  that  no  danger  of  a  collision  with  the 
authorities  was,  however,  to  be  feared,  for 

"  Were  there  no  better  reason,  it  would  be  sufficient  for  the  Washington 
authorities  to  know  that  those  who  should  attempt  to  arrest  men  in  this  State, 
by  virtue  of  the  Conscription  Act,  would  be  mere  trespassers,  and  to  resist 
them  would  be  every  one' 's  right  and  duty.  It -is  not  possible  that  such  col- 
lisions will  be  provoked,  and  we  conclude,  therefore,  that  for  the  present  the 
people  of  Pennsylvania  are  relieved  from  the  terrors  of  the  conscription" 


And  Congress  was  scarcely  organized  before  Mr.  Philip  Johnson,  a 
Democratic  representative  from  Pennsylvania,  introduced  a  resolution  re- 
quiring the  President  either  to  acquiesce  in  the  decision  of  the  State  tri- 
bunal, or  to  submit  the  question  to  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court,  then  under 
Chief  Justice  Taney.  For  this  obstructive  measure  the  Democratic  mem- 
bers, with  the  exception  of  four,  voted  in  a  solid  body.  What  is  known 
as  the  Columbia  County  Conspiracy,  an  arme'd  and  organized  resistance  to 
the  law,  was  the  natural  result  of  these  teachings. 

The  privilege  of  commutation  had  been  the  chief  point  of  attack  by  the 
Democrats,  but  its  removal  only  intensified  their  bitterness.  At  the 
Chicago  Convention  the  draft  was  the  subject  of  the  most  inflammatory 
appeals  to  the  people.   .Thus,  the  Hon.  James  H.  Reed,  of  Indiana,  said : 

"  He  advised  open  and  above-board  resistance  to  the  draft.  If  Lincoln  and 
his  satraps  attempted  to  enforce  it,  blood  would  flow  in  our  streets,  and  it  would 
be  right  it  should  flow.  Lincoln  was  already  damned  to  all  eternity,  and  he 
did  not  know  if  even  this  iniquitous  measure  would  materially  affect  the  es- 
timation in  which  the  people  held  him.  .  .  .  He  advised  his  hearers  to  shoot 
down  those  who  would  enforce  the  draft  ;  to  insist  upon  the  right  of  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus ;  to  resist  to  the  bitter  end  the  attempt  to  make  the  military 
power  superior  to  the  civil,  and  to  openly  arm  themselves  that  they  might  be 
prepared  for  horrible  contingencies," 

Mr.  Paine,  of  Missouri,  asked  his  hearers, 

"  Did  the  people  want  a  draft  ?  [Not  by  a  d — d  sight.]  Then  they  must 
upset  the  present  government  at  "Washington.  This  dynasty  had  already  placed 
in  the  field  2,200,000  men  to  be  offerred  upon  the  altar  of  the  negro,  and  now 
it  demanded  500,000  more.  If 'these  are  given  there  will  be  no  finality,  but 
only  a  prelude  to  fresh  calls,  all  to  elevate  the  flat-nosed,  wooly-headed,  long- 
heeleJ,  cursed  of  God,  and  damned  of  man,  descendants  of  Africa." 

The  Hon.  H.  S.  Orton,  of  Wisconsin,  however,  admitted  that  he  liked 
the  draft,  on  account  of  the  political  advantage  it  gave  the  Democracy. 

M  Under  the  pressure  of  the  draft — and  God  bless  the  draft — it  is  the  best 
argument  that  has  ever  been  addressed  to  the  American  people.  It  proves  that 
we  have  touched  bottom,  we  have  got  a  realizing  sense  that  we  have  got  nearly 
to  the  last  ditch,  the  last  man  and  the  last  dollar." 

The  Rev.  C.  Chauncey  Burr  gloated  over  the  resistance  that  had  already 
been  made,  and  threatened  a  revolution. 

"  In  New  Jersey  they  had  shifted  the  responsibility  of  these  despotic,  acts  to 
the  shoulders  of  the  Abolitionists,  and  more  than  one  provost  marshal  had  a 
hole  made  through  his  head.  In  that  State  it  was  a  difficult  matter  at  one  time 
to  find  an  Abolitionist  who  would  accept  such  a  position,  and  the  Administra- 
tion had  tried  to  bribe  Democrats,  but,  thank  God,  they  had  failed.  But  they 
had  well  ni^h  reached  the  end  of  their  rei^n  of  despotism.  They  could  and 
should  not  go  any  further.  They  were  about  to  be  swept  from  the  land  by  an 
indignant  people.  They  talked  about  a  rebellion  down  South,  but  a  greater 
rebellion  had  been  in  progress  in  the  North." 


DEMOCRATIC  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  FINANCES. 

If  the  Democrats  thus  did  all  they  could  to  prevent  the  government 
from  getting  men,  they  were  not  less  eager  to  cut  off  its  supplies  of  money, 
by  attacking  its  credit,  and  keeping  the  prospects  of  repudiation  before  the 
people. 

Governor  Seymour,  while  canvassing  the  State  of  New  York  before  his 
election  in  1862,  thus  artfully  deprecated  and  threatened  repudiation : 

"  The  weight  of  annual  taxation  will  severely  test  the  loyalty  of  the  people. 
Repudiation  of  our  financial  obligations  would  cause  disaster  and  endless 
moral  evils.  But  pecuniary  rights  will  never  be  held  more  sacred  than 
personal  rights.  Repudiation  of  the  Constitution  involved  repudiation  of 
national  debts." 

Mr.  William  B.  Reed,  shortly  afterwards,  in  his  "  Vindication "  was 
more  out-spoken. 

"  Will  any  man,  the  veriest  optimist  who  lives,  tell  me  that  in  his  conscience 
he  looks  to  the  payment — even  to  the  extent  of  its  appalling  interest — of  the 
war  debt  we  are  now  roiling  up  so  fast  —  its  thousands  or  hundreds  of  millions, 
funded  or  unfunded, — without  counting  the  millions  by  and  by,  for  claims  and 
damages  and  pensions,  or  the  contingent  cost  of  negro  deportation  and  coloni- 
zation ?  It  is  a  grave  subject,  this,  of  public  credit,  on  which  no  one  should 
talk  lightly.  Its  abuse  and  its  disparagement  are  alike,  though  not  equally, 
mischievous.  But  the  fear  and  the  belief  of  every  thoughtful  man  must  at 
this  moment  be  that,  unless  some  limit  to  new  debt  be  soon  imposed,  when  pay- 
day comes  there  will  be  a  race  among  the  States  of  the  North  as  to  further 
disintegration,  and  an  effort  in  this  way  to  escape  from  the  overpowering  bur- 
then of  desperate  indebtedness." 

The  same  gentleman,  a  year  later,  in  his  Meadville  speech  of  September 
17,  1863,  thus  attacked  the  whole  financial  system  and  credit  of  the  gov- 
ernment : 

"  First,  ?ls  to  the  Federal  paper  currency.  It  is  a  huge  engine  of  ultimate 
misery.  It  is  pestilent  because  it  is  insidious,  and  pervades  every  channel  of 
active  life,  and  influences  every  relation  of  business.  It  is  pestilent  as  a  con- 
fession of  weakness,  for  no  government  that  felt  itself  strong,  and  was  not  on 
the  defensive,  ever  made  such  an  experiment.  ...  We  do  it  with  all  our 
boasted  prosperity,  because,  in  point  of  truth,  the  sources  of  real  and  substan- 
tial credit  are  cut  off  by  our  own  insanity;  because  no  one  abroad  will  lend  us 
money,  and  no  one  at  home  will,  if  they  can  help  it,  lend  us  money.  .  .  .  The 
only  persons  who  need  not  take  this  trash,  or  who  are  forbidden  to  take  it,  are 
the  government  itself ;  for  remember,  one  large  element  of  the  enormous  price 
you  now  pay  for  tea,  and  coffee,  and  sugar,  and  such  necessaries  of  life,  is  the 
heavy  duty  in  gold  and  silver  which  the  government  exacts.  But,  except  the 
duty  thus  paid,  and  the  little  interest  they  promise  to  pay  on  the  public  debt, 
there  is  nothing  about  us  or  around  us'  but  a  vast  ocean  of  unconvertible  and 
irredeemable  paper,  increasing  every  moment  that  the  bleeding  artery  of  war 
expenditure  continues  to  flow." 

In  August,  1864,  Mr.  Vallandigham,  at  the  Syracuse  Convention,  in- 
dulged in  the  most  fearful  amplification  and  prophecies  of  evil. 

"  A  debt  of  nearly  four  thousand  millions,  a  daily  expenditure  of  nearly  five 


millions,  and  a  currency  worth  about  thirty-eight  cents  on  the  dollar,  which 
two  months  ago  was  worth  one  hundred  per  cent,  more  than  it  is  now,  and 
which  two  months  hence  will  be  worth  one  hundred  per  cent.  less.  Ruin  is 
impending." 

Nor  have  these  persistent  .assaults  upon  the  credit  of  the  government 
ceased  with  the  triumphant  -close  of  the  war.  That  has  vindicated  itself, 
but  the  public  debt  is  a  thing  as  well  of  the  present  and  the  future,  and 
the  Democracy,  who  grudge  the  object  for  which  it  was  created,  still  con- 
tinue their  attacks  upon  it.  On  May  24,  1865,  the  Democratic  Judges  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  Pennsylvania  pronounced  the  Legal  Tender  Act 
unconstitutional,  and  Mr.  Edward  Ingersoll,  in  his  New  York  speech  of 
April  13,  18C5,  attacked  the  very  corner-stone  of  public  faith  and  national 
credit,  and  boldly  justified  repudiation. 

"  I  shall  deal  with  this  question  politically,  and  inquire,  for  a  moment, 
whether  the  laboring  and  producing  classes  of  America  are,  by  our  laws,  or 
by  our  system  of  government,  or  by  any  code  of  law  or  honor,  human  or  divine, 
bound  to  assume  this  burden?  ....  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  revolutionary, 
and  has  been  created  in  violation  and  in  overthrow  of  our  institutions,  our  duty 
as  conservative  and  honest  citizens  is  to  resist  it  and  support  these  institutions. 
....  In  short,  sir,  to  put  the  argument  in  a  word,  this  is  the  debt  of  Aboli- 
tionism. If  Abolitionism  has  been  false  to  American  institutions,  ....  then 
are  the  laboring  and  producing  classes  of  America  under  no  obligation  to  its 
support." 

This  is  not  merely  a  sporadic  manifestation  of  individual  seditious  dis- 
honesty, but  an  indication  of  a  determinate  party  policy,  which  shows  itself 
elsewhere  with  more  or  less  distinctness.  The  New  York  World  occasion- 
ally experiments  upon  the  patience  of  its  readers  with  insidious  comparisons 
between  the  Confederate  and  the  Federal  debt.  The  Cincinnati  Inquirer, 
the  organ  of  the  party  in  the  Central  West,  is  more  outspoken.  In  its 
issue  of  June  6,  1865,  it  says: 

rt  Sincerely,  we  are  afraid  that  the  national  debt  will  not  be  paid  We 

must  certainly  not  repudiate,  though  we  may  fail  to  pay.  To  repudiate,  would 
be  to  declare  that  we  do  not  owe,  which  would  be  very  wrong;  to  fail  to  pay 
might  be  entirely  right,  as  it  could  be  put  upon  the  ground  of  overpowering 
necessity.  There  is  always  an  implied  condition  in  the  creation  of  debts,  public 
as  well  as  private,  that  the  party  promising  shall,  at  the  time  it  falls  due,  have 
the  means  to  meet  his  obligation.  If  members  of  Congress  find  themselves  un- 
able, in  conscience,  to  vote  taxes  upon  their  constituents,  or  instalments  when 
there  is  no  money  in  the  Treasury,  who  is  to  blftme?  If  the  people  resolve  to 
vote  for  a  representative  whose  sincere  convictions  are  against  taxes,  rather 
than  for  one  whose  convictions  are  the  other  way,  who  is  to  blame  them?  .... 
"When  the  people  decline  to  vote  for  members  of  Congress  who  are  known  to  be 
in  favor  of  continued  or  increased  taxation,  and  conclude  to  vote  for  members' 
who  are  known  or  believed  to  be  opposed  to  such  continuation  or  increase,  we 
shall  be  disposed  to  hold  that  they  understand  their  own  business  and  ability 
best,  and  shall  not,  therefore,  be  impelled  to  pronounce  against  their  honesty 
or  their  patriotism.    So  far,  we  think,  we  can  promise." 

And  this  barefaced  repudiator  returns  to  the  attack,  June  10,  with  an 


by  familiarizing  the  people  with  the  idea  of  repudiation. 

"As  the  good  Mr.  Sleek  said  of  the  Potowatomies,  we  say  of  the  public 

creditors,  we  hope  they  will  get  their  money  We  have  always  observed, 

that  when  some  men  begin  to  speak  of  not  paying  their  debts,  provided  things 
are  thus  and  thus,  it  is  not  long  before  they  learn  to  drop  the  contingency  and 
go  in  for  non-payment  altogether." 

THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION 

was  not  intended  to  soothe  the  exacerbations  of  pro-slavery  Democracy, 
and  no  surprise,  therefore,  can  be  felt  at  its  calling  forth  denunciations  in 
every  degree  of  bitterness.  Two  examples  will  suffice  to  show  the  temper 
in  which  it  was  received.  Thus  the  Age  of  Nov.  13,  1863,  indulges  in 
playful  pleasantry. 

"  The  original  draft  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  is  for  sale  out  "West; 
and  one  bid  has  been  offered  of  twelve  hundred  dollars  for  it.  Some  Loyal 
Leaguer  '  hopes  it  may  be  secured  for  a  loyal  Historical  Society/  Dick  Tur- 
pin's  commission  to  rob  on  the  highway,  which  this  eccentric  rascal  had  drawn 
up  and  forged  the  seal  and  signature  to,  recently  sold  in  London  for  £240,  just 
exactly  the  price  offered  for  the  Emancipation  Proclamation." 

The  Philadelphia  Evening  Journal  of  Jan.  20,  1863,  was,  however,  not 
disposed  to  regard  the  subject  in  so  jocular  a  light.  It  quoted  the  follow- 
ing from  Jefferson  Davis'  recent  message  concerning  the  proclamation, 
and  endorsed  the  remarks  as  being  "  truthfully  spoken 

"  It  is  also  in  effect  an  intimation  to  the  North  that  they  must  prepare  to  sub- 
mit to  a  separation  Humanity  shudders  at  the  appalling  atrocities  which 

are  being  daily  multiplied  under  the  sanction  of  those  who  have  claimed  tem- 
porary possession  of  the  power  in  the  United  States,  and  who  are  fast  making 
its  once  fair  name  a  reproach  among  civilized  men." 

And  the  Journal  proceeded  to  comment  and  enlarge  upon  this  text. 

"  None  of  the  great  benefits  predicted  from  the  Emancipation  Proclamation 
have  been  realized.    The  slaves  have  not  risen  and  cut  their  master's  throats, 

as  the  Abolitionists  so  fondly  hoped  Well,  the  slaves  have  not  risen, 

but  it  has  been  through  the  Providence  of  God,  and  not  from  the  desire  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  to  the  contrary.  He  issued  his  incendiary  address  to  them,  inviting 
them  to  strike  for  freedom,  but  they  have  remained  faithfully  with  their  mas- 
ters, except  where  they  have  been  driven  away  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet  by 

Federal  troops  The  President  has  just  as  much  right  to  declare  the 

marriage  tie  dissolved  in  the  South  as  the  bond  of  master  and  servant.  One  is 
as  much  a  military  necessity  as  the  other.  Who  but  a  madman  or  a  fool 
believes  that  the  Union  can  be  restored  by  such  means." 

THE  AMNESTY  PROCLAMATION 

found  as  little  favor  in  the  eyes  of  the  Democracy.  Its  terms  were  so 
liberal,  and  it  manifested  so  earnest  a  desire  to  restore  the  Union,  that  the 
Democratic  organs  at  once  set  to  work  to  persuade  the  South  that  they 


30 


could  not,  in  honor,  avail  themselves  of  it-  Thus,  the  Age  of  Dec.  11, 
1863,  argues : 

"  For  Mr.  Lincoln,  therefore,  to  compel  the  people  of  the  South  to  swear  that 
they  will  '  abide  by  and  faithfully  support  all  proclamations  having  reference 
to  slaves/  is  not  less  arbitrary  and  unreasonable  than  to  force  them  to  give  in 
their  allegiance  to  his  creed  about  spirit-rapping,  and,  if  complied  with,  would 
strip  those  who  yielded  of  even  the  semblance  of  self-government." 

The  New  York  Leader  of  Dec.  12,  was  even  more  vehement. 

"  The  grotesque  absurdity  of  this  plan  is  at  once  apparent.  Why,  to  say 
nothing  of  those  in  rebellion  against  the  Union,  we  can  most  confidently  assert 
that  at  lest  three-fifths  of  the  people  of  the  so-called  loyal  States  would  refuse 
to  take  any  such  oath  under  any  circumstances  whatever.    The  recent  illness 

of  Mr.  Lincoln  must  have  affected  his  brain  As  Democrats,  we  care 

nothing  for  this  Proclamation.  It  can  have  no  official  force  until  it  is  issued, 
and  then  it  will  fall  as  flat  as  dish  water.  It  is  inconsistent,  contradictory, 
unconstitutional  and  nullifies  itself." 

The  Greensburg  (Pa.)  Argus  was  especially  solicitous  for  the  honor  of 

its  Southern  friends.    According  to  it,  the  Proclamation 

"  Proposes  to  absolve  treason  by  an  oath  involving  not  only  a  violation  of 
the  constitution,  but  also  the  surrender  of  all  possibility  of  manhood,  by 
swearing  to  sustain  measures  of  the  Executive  not  yet  proclaimed.  In  a  word, 
under  the  specious  pretence  of  proposing  a  plan  for  the  restoration  of  the  Union, 
it  adopts  a  plan  which  is  sure  to  defeat  it." 

The  New  Haven  Daily  Register  of  Dec.  11,  it  is  true,  took  a  different 

view  of  the  matter,  which  shows  the  extent  to  which  lust  of  power  and 

place  can  go.    It  advised  its  Southern  allies  to'  submit  to  the  degradation, 

and  promised  chem  the  assistance  of  its  party  in  breaking  their  oaths  of 

amnesty. 

"  We  hope  the  people  of  the  South  will  accept  this  offer,  and  thus  put  an 
end  to  this  bloody  strife.  With  their  representatives  again  in  Congress,  it  will 
not  take  long  to  wipe  out  the  revolutionary  measures  of  the  Abolitionists  and 
place  the  Union  again  on  the  basis  of  the  Constitution.  By  this  means,  too, 
they  can  help  the  conservative  Union  men  of  the  North  to  recover  power  in  the 
Government" 

DENUNCIATIONS  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT. 

It  will  be  difficult  for  t]ie  next  generation  to  credit  the  wrathful  bitter- 
ness with  which  the  Administration  was  daily  assailed  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land — a  bitterness  contrasting  strangely  with 
the  reticent  sympathy  manifested  towards  the  rebels.  In  the  Chicago 
platform,  for  instance,  there  is  no  word  of  reprobation  for  those  who  for 
four  years  had  been  seeking  to  destroy  the  nation,  while  one-half  of  the 
resolutions  were  devoted  to  an  arraignment  of  the  Administration. 

"Resolved,  That  the  direct  interference  of  the  military  authority  of  the 
United  States  in  the  recent  elections  held  in  Kentucky,  Maryland,  Missouri 


and  Delaware,  was  a  shameful  violation  of  the  Constitution,  and  the  repetition 
of  such  acts  in  the  approaching  election  will  be  held  as  revolutionary,  and  re- 
sisted with  all  the  means  and  power  under  our  control. 

11  Resolved,  That  the  aim  and  object  of  the  Democratic  party  is  to  preserve 
the  Federal  Union  and  the  rights  of  the  States  unimpaired;  and  they  hereby 
declare  that  they  consider  the  Administrative  usurpation  of  extraordinary  and 
dangerous  powers  not  granted  by  the  Constitution,  the  subversion  of  the  civil 
by  military  law  in  States  not  in  insurrection,  the  arbitrary  military  arrest,  im- 
prisonment, trial  and  sentence  of  American  citizens  in  States  where  civil  law 
exists  in  full  force,  the  suppression  of  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press,  the 
denial  of  the  right  of  asylum,  the  open  and  avowed  disregard  of  State  rights, 
the  employment  of  unusual  test-oaths,  and  the  interference  with  and  denial  of 
the  right  of  the  people  to  bear  arms,  as  calculated  to  prevent  a  restoration  of 
the  Union  and  the  perpetuation  of  a  government  deriving  its  just  powers  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed. 

"Resolved,  That  the  shameful  disregard  of  the  Administration  to  its  duty  in 
respect  to  our  fellow-citizens  who  now  and  long  have  been  prisoners  of  war  in  a 
suffering  condition,  deserves  the  severest  reprobation,  on  the  score  alike  of 
public  interest  and  common  humanity." 

This,  however,  is  moderate  in  comparison  with  the  fierce  abuse  lavished 
upon  the  Government  by  the  orators  of  the  Convention.  Thus  the  Rev. 
C.  Chauncey  Burr  declared, 

"Argument  was  useless  and  the  time  for  action  had  come.  He  would  speak 
with  that  freedom  which  had  been  the  wont  of  the  people  of  America  for  the 
last  three  years.  During  that  time,  spies  and  informers  had  been  on  the  track 
of  the  people,  and,  in  point  of  fact,  we  had  lived  under  a  despotism  worse  than 
that  of  Austria.  The  people  had  submitted  to  that  despotism,  not  because  of  a 
want  of  courage,  bravery,  or  pluck,  but  because  they  were  a  law-and-order 
people.  They  had  patiently  waited  for  a  change  in  the  policies  of  Lincoln's 
administration,  but  it  had  been  denied  them,  and  for  nearly  four  years  they 
had  submitted  to  these  acts  of  despotism.  And  it  was  a  wonder  they  had  a 
Cabinet  and  men  who  carried  out  the  infamous  orders  of  the  gorilla  tyrant  that 
usurped  the  Presidential  chair. " 

And  Captain  Kuntz,  of  Pennsylvania,  asked, 

"  Shall  more  wives  be  made  widows  and  more  children  fatherless,  and  greater 
hate  be  stirred  up  between  children  of  the  same  glorious  Constitution  ?  If  not, 
we  must  put  our  foot  on  the  tyrant's  neck  and  destroy  it.  The  Democratic 
government  must  be  raised  to  power,  and  Lincoln  with  his  Cabinet  of  rogues, 
thieves  and  spies  be  driven  to  destruction. " 

This,  in  fact,  was  the  tone  of  the  Democratic  organs  everywhere.  Thus, 
at  the  Syracuse  Convention,  Aug.  18,  1864,  one  of  the  resolutions  de- 
clared, 

"Resolved,  That  we  offer  our  solemn  protest  against  the  usurpation  and  law- 
less despotism  of  the  present  Administration  as  subversive  of  the  Constitution 
and  destructive  to  the  liberties  of  the  people.  It  has  denied  to  sovereign  States 
constitutional  rights,  and  thereby  absolved  them  from  all  allegiance.  It  has 
trampled  down  a  nation  that  it  may  instal  a  military  despotism  upon  the  ruins 

of  constitutional  liberty  It  has  struck  down  freedom  of  speech  and  of 

the  press.  It  has  stripped  from  the  American  citizen  his  panoply,  and  con- 
signed him  to  the  bastile  without  process  of  law,  without  charge,  and  without 
opportunity  of  trial.    It  has,  by  the  military,  violently  suppressed  the  freedom 


32 


of  the  ballot,  and  dictated  elections  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.  It  has  an- 
nulled every  constitutional  guarantee  for  the  protection  of  the  citizen  and  sub- 
jected him  to  an  irresponsible  tyranny  of  military  violence." 

So  the  State  Central  Committee  of  Pennsylvania,  in  their  address  to  the 
people  during  the  canvass  of  1864,  assured  us — 

"  Nor  can  hope  find  a  resting-place  in  contemplating  the  men  who  now  con- 
trol our  Goverment  and  administer  the  laws;  and  it  turns  sickened  and  sadly 
away  from  the  audacity,  arrogance  and  tyranny  it  finds  in  high  places,  even  in 
the  very  citadel  of  the  nation.  Sciolists  in  government;  atheists  in  religion; 
men  Avho  are  free-lovers  in  one  sphere  and  free  thieves  in  another ;  renegades 
in  politics  and  scoffers  at  every  well  settled  principle  of  public  right  and  private 
virtue  now  sway  the  destinies  of  this  Republic,  and  are  crushing  out  the  very 
life  of  American  freedom." 

This  cry  was  echoed  everywhere,  but  a  single  additional  example  must 

suffice,  taken  from  the  Philadelphia  Age  of  Oct.  1,  1864. 

"When  we  review  the  long  and  fearful  catalogue  of  wrongs  and  infamies 
and  crimes  committed  on  these  suffering  people  under  orders  from  the  great 
criminals  at  Washington,  we  cannot  believe  that  any  one  wearing  a  human 
form  and  having  a  human  heart  within  his  breast  could  sit  idly  by  and  not 
give  a  cheering  voice  and  extend  a  helping  hand  to  his  Democratic  brethren  of 
the  North,  who  now,  in  the  face  of  despotic  power,  are  fighting  this  last  great 

battle  for  human  freedom  We  have  wept  with  them  when  the  standard 

of  civil  and  religious  liberty  has  been  trodden  in  the  dust  by  Mr.  Lincoln's 
myrmidons.  We  have  unsparingly  denounced  the  cowardly  acts  of  the  base 
traitors  at  Washington  who  have  taken  away  their  dearest  rights  and  liberties." 

DENUNCIATION  OF  MR.  LINCOLN. 

Concentrated  upon  the  President,  this  abuse  became  frantic  reviling. 
Those  who  now  profess  to  revere  his  memory  could  then  find  no  words 
coarse  or  bitter  enough  to  express  their  hatred  and  contempt  of  his  person 
and  motives.  The  "  Great  Joker,"  baboon,  ape,  gorilla,  usurper,  tyrant, 
monster,  widow-maker,  Negro- God, — such  were  the  customary  epithets 
applied  to  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  nation.  Enough  of  this,  perhaps,  has 
incidentally  been  given  above,  and  from  among  fifty  specimens  of  ribaldry 
which  lie  before  us,  we  can  fiud  space  but  for  the  following,  which  will 
exemplify  their  general  tone.  It  is  from  the  La  Crosse  (Wis.)  Democrat, 
and  was  largely  and  approvingly  copied  by  other  Democratic  papers. 

"Yesterday  was  Fast-Day.  The  widow-maker  called  for  half  a  million  of 
men,  and  then  asked  God  to  bless  him  for  the  cruel  deed !  And  in  this  con- 
nection we  are  led  to  repeat : 

"  God  bless*onr  noble  President! 

"  Bless  him  for  being  the  poorest  apology  for  a  Chief  Magistrate  the  world 
over  saw. 

"  Bless  our  noble  President  for  being  the  only  clown,  buffoon,  and  story-teller 
ever  elevated  to  a  position  of  influence  in  this  country. 

"Bless  him  for  filling  the  land  with  smutty  jokes — with  foul-mouthed  and 
obscene  stories  which  even  blackguards  by  profession  are  ashamed  to  repeat. 

"  Bless  him  for  overriding  all  laws,  both  human  and  divine. 


33 


"  Bless  him  for  his  imbecile  incompetency,  and  for  his  success  in  ruining  a 
great  nation. 

"Bless  him  for  turning  the  war  for  a  restoration  of  the  Union,  and  for  the 
suppression  of  the  rebellion  into  a  wicked  and  murderous  crusade  for  cotton, 
niggers  and  power. 

"  Bless  him  for  making  a  million  of  widows,  and  five  millions  of  orphans. 

"  Bless  him  for  robbing  the  North  of  its  bone  and  sinew,  for  using  the  bodies 
of  those  whose  servant  he  is  to  enrich  the  soil  of  rebel  territory. 

"Bless  him  for  piling  mountains  of  taxes  upon  us — for  the  stamps  we  use — 
for  the  depreciation  of  our  currency — for  the  poverty,  ruin,  and  suffering  in  the 
land — for  the  thousands  of  women  he  has  forced  into  houses  of  prostitution — 
for  the  thousands  of  broken  hearts — for  thousands  of  orphaned  children  who 
will  curse  him  forever — for  the  army  of  cripples — for  the  corruption  in  high 
places — for  the  trampling  upon  the  liberties  of  a  free  people — for  freeing  the 
negroes  by  a  stroke  of  his  pen — for  continuing  this  war  till  slaves  ar3  freed, 
thus  proving  the  foolishness  of  his  proclamation — for  the  failure  of  his  armies — 
for  the  deprivation  of  rights  which  had  made  America  the  home  for  all  God's 
oppressed — for  the  depopulation  of  the  land  and  the  feeling  of  undefinable  dread, 
which  might  have  been  golden  had  he  been  more  of  a  man  and  a  statesman,  and 
less  of  a  pliant  tool  in  the  hands  of  fanatics." 

The  promulgation  of  these  sentiments  naturally  led  to  threats  of  ven- 
geance, legal  or  illegal,  such  as  those  made  by  excited  orators  at  the  Chicago 
Convention,  where  the  Hon.  W.  W.  O'Brien,  of  Illinois,  assured  his 
hearers  that, 

"  When  Abraham  Lincoln  retired  from  the  Presidential  chair,  they  would 
renew  trial  by  jury  and  try  him  for  the  offences  he  has  committed  against  the 
the  laws  and  the  Constitution.  He  would  be  provided  with  counsel  and  pro- 
tected by  good  Democratic  lawyers.  (Cheers.)  They  would  try  him  as  Charles 
I,  was  tried  in  England,  and  the  verdict  of  the  jury  might  be  the  same,  that  he 
had  been  found  guilty  of  being  a  tyrant  and  a  traitor.  "Whatever  they  would 
do  would  be  under  the  law,  and  if  they,  found  him  guilty,  they  would  find  men 
to  carry  out  the  law.  (Cheers)." 

And  the  Hon.  Benjamin  Allen,  of  New  York,  prophesied  : 

"The  people  will  soon  rise,  and  if  they  cannot  put  Lincoln  out  of  power  by 
the  ballot,  they  will  by  the  bullet." 

The  crime  of  Sooth  was  the  logical  result  of  all  this,  and  its  sequence  is 
to  be  found  in  the  New  York  News  of  June  8,  in  which  the  court  now  try- 
ing the  assassins  is  told  : 

"  If  they  order  any  body  to  be  executed,  they  will  be  simply  guilty,  every 
one  of  them,  of  deliberate  murder,  and  when  this  people  wakes  a  little  out  of 
their  bewilderment,  the  members  of  that  military  commission  will  be  hanged." 

THREATS    OF  RESISTANCE. 

The  aid  and  comfort  afforded  to  rebellion  by  the  Democracy  was  not 
confined  to  argument  and  denunciation.  Efforts  were  constantly  made  to 
stir  the  people  up  to  the  pitch  of  armed  resistance,  and,  but  for  the  sleep- 
less vigilance  of  the  Government,  the  attempt  would  have  been  infallibly 
made  through  the  agency  of  the  secret  Democratic  orders,  the  "  Knights 
3 


of  the  Golden  Circle,"  the  "  American  Knights/'  and  the  "  Sons  of 
Liberty." 

The  leading  principles  which,  more  or  less  concealed,  form  the  basis  of 
much  that  has  been  quoted  above,  will  be  found  reduced  to  their  simple 
expression  in  the  following  from  the  "  Lesson"  of  the  First  Degree  of  the 
Order  of  the  Sons  of  Liberty. 

10.  Whenever  the  officials,  to  whom  the  people  have  entrusted  the  powers 
of  tho  Government,  shall  refuse  to  administer  it  in  strict  accordance  with  its 
constitution,  and  shall  assume  and  exeroise  power  or  authority  not  delegated, 
it  is  the  inherent  right  and  imperative  duty  of  the  people  to  resist  such  officials, 
and,  if  need  be,  to  expel  them  by  force  of  arms.  Such  resistance  is  not  revolu- 
tion, but  is  solely  the  assertion  of  right. 

"  11.  It  is  incompatible  with  the  history  and  nature  of  our  system  of  govern- 
ment, that  Federal  authority  should  coerce  by  arms  a  sovereign  State  ;  and  all 
intimations  of  such  power  or  right  were  expressly  withheld  in  the  Constitution, 
which  conferred  upon  the  Federal  Government  all  its  authority." 

And  the  Grand  Commander  of  the  Order  in  Indiana,  (H.  PI.  Dodd,  of 
Indianapolis,  who  confessed  his  guilt  by  violating  his  parole  and  escaping 
to  Canada  while  under  trial),  in  his  address  to  the  Order  of  that  State, 
February  16,  1864,  thus  communicates  the  views  of  Yallandigham  on  the 

subject : 

"  He  finally  judges  that  the  Washington  power  will  not  yield  up  its  power, 
until  it  is  taken  from  them  by  an  indignant  people  by  force  of  arms.  He  inti- 
mates that  parties,  men  and  interests,  will  divide  into  two  classes,  and  that  a 
conflict  will  ensue  for  the  mastery." 

The  same  ideas,  more  decently  veiled,  are  conveyed  in  the  third  and 
fourth  resolutions  of  the  Chicago  Platform,  under  guise  of  fear  lest  the 
coming  elections  should  be  controlled  by  the  military  power  of  the  Ad- 
ministration, and  of  indignation  at  the  disarming  of  the  Sons  of  liberty  in 
Indiana. 

In  view  of  the  programme  thus  indicated,  it  is  easy  to  understand  the 
threats  in  which  Democratic  demagogues  habitually  indulged. 

Thus  Mr.  Max  Goepp,  in  a  speech  at  Lancaster,  Pa.,  September  17, 
1863,  told  his  hearers : 

"  So  long  as  the  free  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise  is  left  us,  I  still  hope. 
Should  that  be  taken  away,  we  have  nothing  left  to  live  for,  and  may  as  well 
sell  our  lives  as  dearly  as  we  can." 

So  Mr.  Senator  Wall,  of  New  Jersey,  May  9,  1863,  enlightened  the 
Democratic  Central  Club  of  Philadelphia,  on  their  rights  and  duties  : 

"  I  do  not  hesitate  to  declare  in  the  ears  of  the  Administration  and  of  the 
Loyal  Leagues  its  allies,  that  if  their  war  upon  the  personal  liberty  of  the 
subject,  in  defiance  of  the  guarantees  of  the  Constitution,  goes  on,  the  time 
may  come  when  '  forbearance  ceases  to  be  a  virtue/  and  '  resistance  to  tyrants 


becomes  obedience  to  God/  Let  our  cry  be,  in  the  fearful  contest  which  is 
approaching,  1  We  will  ask  for  nothing  but  what  is  right ;  we  will  submit  to 
nothing  that  is  wrong.' " 

And  Mr.  Edward  Ingersoll  endeavored  to  excite  the  passions  of  the  same 

body,  June  13,  1863  : 

"  Can  the  Democratic  people  of  America  protect  and  defend  the  institutions 
of  this  country  against  the  revolutionary  assaults  of  Abolitionism?  Aye, 
sirs,  and  whether  the  appeal  be  to  the  ballot-box,  or  the  hideous  but  not  less 
popular  appeal  to  the  cartridge  box  be  forced  upon  the  people,  I  have  not  a 

particle  of  doubt  of  the  result  Maintain  your  laws,  peaceably  if  you 

can,  forcibly  if  you  must.  Your  Constitution  provides  that,  '  the  right  of  the 
people  to  keep  and  bear  arms  shall  not  be  infringed/  That  clause  has  full  mean- 
ing, and  was  not  provided  for  you  without  anxious  thought  for  the  future,  founded 
on  a  knowledge  of  the  past  I" 

Nor  was  there  wanting  a  Tyrtaeus  to  sing  the  wrongs  and  threaten  the 

vengeance  of  the  martyrs  who  were  cruelly  restrained  from  destroying  their 

country.    To  relieve  the  monotony  of  prosaic  treason,  a  few  lines  may 

be  quoted,  from  "  The  Bastiles  of  America,"  "written  for  the  Age," 

and  printed  therein,  September  23,  1863. 

"  A  thousand  memories  of  wrong,  which  freemen  ne'er  forget, 
Are  brooded  o'er  in  Warren,  and  the  vaults  of  Lafayette, 
The  shield  of  law  our  fathers  gave,  their  children's  sole  defence, 
You've  wrested  on  the  '  safety'  plea,  the  tyrant's  old  pretence ; 
And  now,  with  daggers  at  our  breasts,  you  bid  us  hug  our  chains, 
And  bear  in  silence  all  the  stripes,  dealt  by  a  host  of  Cains. 
No  !  by  the  bright  heroic  past,  its  deeds  of  high  renown, 
That  thundered  at  the  gates  of  kings,  and  shook  their  sceptres  down, 
By  shades  of  Franklin,  Jefferson,  of  Henry,  Adams,  Lee, 
And  sires  that  fought  with  Washington  the  battles  of  the  free, 
We  will  not  be  your  willing  slaves,  while  one  warm  drop  remains, 
Unchilled  by  tyrant's  menaces  in  dauntless  freemen's  veins !" 

This  sort  of  malignant  folly  was  kept  up  until  the  eve  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
re-election.  The  National  Democratic  Executive  Committee,  on  October 
10,  1864,  issued  an  address  in  which  they  endeavored  to  inflame  the  pas- 
sions of  the  people  by  recounting  the  tyrannical  excesses  of  the  Govern- 
ment, and  wound  up  by  threatening  a  revolution  in  case  of  McClellan's 
defeat  at  the  polls. 

"  They  believe  that  the  American  people,  armed  with  the  majestic  authority 
of  the  Constitution  and  the  laws,  will  meet  these  beginnings  of  usurpation  in 
the  spirit  and  with  the  determination  of  their  fathers  ;  nor  suffer  Executive  am- 
bition so  far  to  corrupt  the  constitutional  remedies  of  Executive  wrong-doing  as 
to  condemn  this  great  and  free  people  in  the  immediate  future  to  the  condition  of 
the  remedies  of  the  subject  populations  of  the  olden  world." 

On  the  same  day,  the  special  organ  of  the  Peace  Democracy,  the  New 
Yrork  News,  carried  out  the  proposition  to  its  legitimate  results,  by  de- 
claring that  MeClellan's  election  was  hopeless,  and  that  the  time  for  action 
was  at  hand. 


36 


"  Tim  sun  is  not  more  certain  to  rise  to-morrow,  than  that  the  President  of 
these  United  States  for  the  next  four  years  will  be  Abraham  Lincoln !  .  .  .  . 
The  last  refuge  and  hope  of  law,  order  and  Constitutional  Government  trampled 
under  foot,  it  becomes  the  bounden  duty  of  every  man  among  us  who  would  be 
free,  to  look,  like  our  Revolutionary  fathers,  to  the  remedy  of  his  own  right- 
hand  ;  and,  standing  on  his  constitutional  rights,  to  declare  in  the  face  of  bastile 
or  banishment,  or  still  better,  in  the  very  front  of  hurtling  battle,  that  '  Resis- 
tance TO  TYRANTS  IS  OBEDIENCE  TO  GoD.'  n 

Fortunately,  the  popular  condemnation  of  these  wicked  schemes  was  so 
overwhelming,  that  in  very  despair  they  abandoned  the  plot,  and  the  only 
portion  of  it  which  ripened  to  development  was  the  Chicago  attempt  to  set 
loose  the  rebel  prisoners  at  Camp  Douglass. 

REBEL  APPRECIATION  OF  THE  DEMOCRACY. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  rebels  failed  to  recognize  their  friends. 
When  Jacob  Thompson  could  award  to  a  Democratic  member  of  Congress 
a  part  of  the  funds  entrusted  to  him  for  the  hire  of  assassins,  incendiaries 
and  propagators  of  pestilence,  he  showed  bis  estimate  of  the  value  set  upon 
the  services  of  the  Hen.  Benjamin  Wood,  his  paper  and  his  party.  Not- 
withstanding the  reticence  which  was  imperative  in  the  public  avowal  of 
this  mutual  support,  still  its  expression  by  rebel  statesmen  and  journals 
was  sufficiently  frequent  and  open  to  show  how  confidently  it  was  relied 
on  as  one  of  the  elements  of  success,  as  soon  as  the  stubborn  valor  and 
persistency  of  the  North  showed  them  the  fallacy  of  their  early  contempt 
for  the  Federal  power. 

Thus  when  Captain  Maury,  after  the  disasters  of  Gettysburg  and  Vicks- 
burg,  sought  to  reassure  the  enemies  of  freedom  in  Europe,  he  did  not 
rely  upon  the  rebel  armies,  but  drew  his  argument  from  the  anticipated 
triumphs  of  the  Democracy,  as  the  sure  forerunner  of  Confederate  inde- 
pendence. In  his  letter  of  August  17,  1863,  to  the  London  Times,  he 
■    says : 

"  New  York  is  threatening  armed  resistance  to  the  Federal  Government. 
New  York  is  becoming  the  champion  of  State  rights  in  the  North,  and,  to  that 

extent,  is  taking  Southern  ground  Vallandigham  waits  and  watches 

over  the  border,  pledged,  if  elected  Governor  of  the  State  of  Ohio,  to  array  it 
against  Lincoln  and  the  war,  and  to  go  for  peace.  .  .  .  Never  were  the  chances 
of  the  South  brighter.  All  that  we  have  to  do  is  to  maintain  the  defensive, 
watch  our  chances,  and  strike,  whenever  there  is  an  opportunity  for  a  good 
stroke  with  the  sword  or  with  the  pen." 

Maury  but  echoed  the  received  opinions  of  his  friends  at  home.  The 
principal  argument  used  to  stimulate  the  rebel  armies  to  follow  up  their 
victory  at  Chickamauga,  was  that  their  success  would  insure  that  of  the 
Democracy  with  whom  they  were  virtually  cooperating.    Thus  the  Rich- 


r  ^^^^ 

%  37 

mond  Enquirer ,  of  September  22,  1863,  says  that  if  the  Federal  troops 
could  be 

"  Defeated  at  Chattanooga  and  driven  back  upon  Nashville,  the  Vallandigham 
men  in  Ohio  could  carry  the  election  next  month  with  little  difficulty;  the  peace 
men  in  the  United  States  would  once  more  assert  their  manhood,  and  speak  out 
as  they  did  before  the  late  disasters  had  choked  their  utterances." 

This  was  no  temporary  or  exceptional  policy.  Just  before  the  Chicago 
Convention,  the  rebel  press  again  urged  the  importance  of  rebel  victories 
to  help  the  Democracy.  The  Richmond  Dispatch  of  August  15,  1864, 
thus  speculated  on  the  future,  not  anticipating  how  thoroughly  the  Peace 
Democrats  would  control  the  party  organization. 

"  Reverses  to  the  Yankees,  in  the  next  two  months,  should  they  be  serious, 
may  bring  about  great  changes.  They  alone  can  checkmate  Lincoln  and  weaken 
his  hand,  which  is  quite  strong  as  compared  with  the  frantic  organization  led 
by  the  ridiculous  Fremont,  and  the  Democratic  Party,  broken  in  two  by  the 
peace  and  war  divisions.  With  success  to  Lincoln's  armies,  we  are  satisfied 
these  elements  do  not  exist  in  sufficient  force  to  throw  off  the  Lincoln  yoke.  Yet 
they  may  be  strong  enough,  with  the  help  of  Southern  victories,  to  dethrone 
the  abominable  Illinois  ape.  The  armies  of  the  South  are  indeed  fighting  for 
the  liberties  of  the  Northern  States,  as  well  as  for  those  of  the  Southern." 

The  hollowness  of  McClellan's  pretensions  to  be  a  war  candidate  did 
not  deceive  these  keen-eyed  observers.  The  Richmond  Enquirer ,  of  Sep- 
tember 8,  boasted  that, 

"  Every  defeat  of  Lincoln's  forces  enures  to  the  benefit  of  McClellan  

The  influence  of  the  South,  more  powerful  in  the  shock  of  battle  than  when 
throwing  her  minority  vote  in  an  electoral  college,  will  be  cast  in  favor  of  Mc- 
Clellan by  this  indirect  yet  efficacious  means." 

So  the  Hon.  ,W.  "W.  Boyce,  of  South  Carolina,  in  his  letter  of  September 
29,  1864,  to  Jefferson  Davis,  says : 

"But  fortunately  Mr.  Lincoln  and  those  he  represents  are  not  all  of  the 
North.  There  is  a  powerful  party  there  which  condemns  his  policy.  That  party 
is  rational  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  It  represents  whatever  of  amity  and  con- 
servatism is  left  at  the  North.  This  party  proposes  that  the  war  shall  cease, 
at  least  temporarily,  and  that  all  the  States  should  meet  in  amicable  council, 
to  make  peace  if  possible.    This  is  the  most  imposing  demonstration  in  favor 

of  peace  made  at  the  North  since  the  war  broke  out  Your  only  hope  of 

peace  is  in  the  ascendancy  of  the  Conservative  Party  North.  Fortify  that  party 
if  you  can  by  victories,  but  do  not  neglect  diplomacy."* 

Jefferson  Davis  took  the  advice.  He  did  not  neglect  "  diplomacy,"  for 
on  October  3,  his  agents  in  Canada  remitted  to  their  friends  in  New 


*  Since  the  collapse  of  the  Rebellion,  Mr.  Boyce  has  been  putting  on  some  pretended 
airs  of  Unionism.  His  true  sentiments  may  be  found  in  a  speech  which  be  delivered  at 
Columbia,  S.  C,  on  the  evening  before  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  1860.  "  I  think 
the  only  policy  for  us  is  to  arm  as  soon  as  wo  receive  authentic  intelligence  of  the  elec- 
tion of  Lincoln.  .  .  .  We  will  not  submit,  whether  the  other  Southern  States  act  with  us 
or  with  our  enemies."    And  at  that  time,  Mr.  Boycs  was  a  member  of  Congress. 


88  V 

York,  $10,000  in  gold,  on  October  11,  $5,000  in  gold,  and  on  November 
3,  4  and  8,  80,000  in  currency.    lie  also  felt  the  importance  of  fortifying 
the  Democratic  Party  by  rebel  victories,  for  in  bis  Augusta  speech  of  Octo-  , 
ber  3,  he  exclaimed  : 

"  We  must  beat  Sherman,  we  must  march  into  Tennessee  ;  there  we  will  draw 
from  20,000  to  30,000  to  our  standard,  and,  so  strengthened,  we  must  push  the 
e  nemy  back  to  the  banks  of  the  Ohio,  and  thus  give  the  peace  party  of  the  North 
an  accretion  no  puny  editorial  can  give."* 

And  the  next  day,  at  Columbia,  S.  C,  he  repeated  the  sentiment : 

"Let  fresh  victories  crown  our  arms,  and  the  peace  party,  if  such  there  beat 
the  North,  can  elect  its  candidate." 

So,  after  Mr.  Lincoln's  re-election,  November  9,  Mr.  Foote,  of  Tennessee, 
declared  in  the  Richmond  Congress : 

"  I  say  we  have  friends — good,  true,  valiant  friends  at  the  North.  Every 
vote  pven  for  McClellan  was  for  peace.  Every  vote  given  for  McClellan  was 
a  vote  against  Lincoln's  African  policy.  Every  vote  given  for  McClellan  was 
a  vote  given  for  an  armistice.  If  McClellan  had  been  elected,  he,  Foote,  was 
prepared  to  make  from  his  seat  a  proposition  for  a  convention  of  the  sovereign 
States,  North  and  South,  and  he  believed  the  South  wo.uld  have  secured  from 
it  peace  and  her  independence." 

The  "  peace"  thus  confidently  anticipated  from  McClellan's  success  by 
all  parties  at  the  South,  was  a  peace  founded  on  separation  and  indepen- 
dence.   In  Jefferson  Davis'  Augusta  speech  of  October  3,  he  declared: 

"  My  first  effort  was  for  peace  From  time  to  time,  I  have  repeated 

efforts  to  that  end,  but  never,  never,  have  I  sought  it  on  any  other  basis  than 
independence." 

Even  in  the  despondency  of  last  winter,  when  the  Rebel  Commissioners 
met  Mr.  Lincoln  at  Fortress  Monroe,  the  same  high  spirit  was  preserved. 
At  the  great  meeting  in  the-  African  church  at  Richmond,  February  9, 
1865,  to  fire  the  Southern  heart  anew,  Mr.  Secretary  .Benjamin,  in  rendering 
an  account  of  the  negotiations,  told  the  disappointed  people  : 

"Our  Commissioners,  sent  to  confer  with  the  enemy,  went  with  a  piece  of 
blank  paper  filled  with  one  word  written  by  our  President — Independence.  ,  . 
I  believe,  contrary  to  the  honorable  gentleman  who  has  preceded  me,  that 
when  Blair  came  to  Richmond,  there  was  an  opportunity  for  suspending  fight- 
ing and  bloodshed,  in  which  time  measures  might  be  taken  for  restoration  of 
peace,  but  none  of  us  for  a  moment  dreamed  of  reconstruction." 

Even  still,  now  that  the  Confederacy  and  its  independence  have  vanished 
like  a  dream,  ambitious  demagogues  are  striving  to  build  up  a  reconstructed 
Democratic  Party  on  its  ruins.  The  red-handed  accomplice  of  Booth, 
George  N.  Sanders,  in  his  proclamation  of  June  1,  "  To  the  Patriots  of  the 
South,"  promises  them  the  aid  of  the  Northern  Democracy  in  rc-vindica- 


1 89 

ting  their  old  supremacy,  and  evidently  looks  forward  to  the  time  when  by 
this  means  he  shall  be  enabled  to  insult  a  nation  of  mourners  by  his  res- 
toration to  a  place  in  its  councils. 

"  The  Northern  conservatives  cannot  stand  by  motionless  and  see  established, 
upon  a  pretext  of  punishing  rebels,  the  agrarian  precedent  announced  in  Pres- 
ident Johnson's  '  disability'  proclamation  You  have  the  power  to  direct 

the  future.  Then  call  upon  the  men  of  the  North,  who  acknowledge  your  equality 
in  the  Union,  to  meet  you  in  convention  in  New  York  City,  before  the  Northern 
fall  elections,  and  there  to  organize  with  you  a  great  national  party,  such  as 
will  deter  the  profligate  President  and  his  provost  spies  from  laying  their  brutal 
hands  upon  unoffending  men.  women  and  children." 

This,  then,  is  the  record  which  the  Democratic  Party  has  made  for  itself 
during  the  war  for  the  Union.  It  rejected  from  its  communion  the  men 
whose  patriotism  set  country  above  party,  and  surrendered  its  destinies  to 
short-sighted  and  narrow-minded  politicians,  whose  blind  selfishness  led 
them  to  see  their  advantage  in  sedition  and  treason.  In  a  Republic,  two 
parties  are  well  nigh  indispensable,  and  an  honest,  patriotic  Opposition  is  in 
the  highest  degree  desirable ;  but  an  Opposition  which,  in  a  rebellion,  takes 
sides  with  insurgents,  forfeits  for  the  future  all  claim  upon  public  confi- 
dence, and  must  be  content  with  the  contemptuous  obscurity  accorded  to  un- 
holy ambition  baffled  in  its  wicked  schemes. 

Our  repulsive  task  has  been  to  show,  upon  Democratic  evidence,  that 
this  is  the  doom  earned  for  itself  by  the  Democratic  Party.  Yet  another 
lesson  may  also  be  learned  from  the  retrospect.  "Without  a  clear  under- 
standing of  the  policy  and  efforts  of  the  Opposition,  it  is  impossible  to  ap- 
preciate the  full  glory  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Administration,  engaged  in  a 
desperate  war  with  rebellion,  and  crippled  &t  every  turn  by  an  active  and 
unscrupulous  faction,  which  at  times  threatened  to  paralyze  utterly  the 
arm  of  the  nation.  Nor,  without  considering  the  aims  openly  avowed,  and 
the  means  unhesitatingly  adopted  by  that  faction,  can  we  sufficiently  admire 
the  invariable  good  temper,  magnanimity,  firmness,  and  reverence  for  law, 
which  set  at  naught  their  plots  without  sacrificing  the  rights  and  liberties 
of  the  nation. 


■ 


THE  CONDITION  OF  THE  SOUTH: 

Extracts  from  the  Eeport  of  MAJOR-GENEEAL  CAEL  SCHUEZ, 
on  the  States  of  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama, 
Mississippi  and  Louisiana: 

ADDRESSED  TO  THE  PRESIDENT. 


Condition  op  Things  immediately  after  the  Close  of  the  War. 

When  the  news  of  Lee's  and  Johnston's  surrenders  burst  upon  the 
southern  country  the  general  consternation  was  extreme.  Men  who  had 
occupied  positions  under  the  confederate  government,  or  were  otherwise 
compromised  in  the  rebellion,  ran  before  the  federal  columns,  as  they 
advanced  and  spread  out  to  occupy  the  country,  from  village  to  village, 
from  plantation  to  plantation,  hardly  knowing  whether  they  wanted  to 
escape  or  not.  Others  remained  at  their  homes  yielding  themselves  up  to 
their  fate.  Prominent  Unionists  told  me  that  persons  who  for  four  years 
had  scorned  to  recognize  them  on  the  street  approached  them  with  smiling 
faces  and  both  hands  extended.  Men  of  standing  in  the  political  world 
expressed  serious  doubts  as  to  whether  the  rebel  States  would  ever  again 
occupy  their  position  as  States  in  the  Union,  or  be  governed  as  conquered 
provinces.  The  public  mind  was  so  despondent  that  if  readmission  at 
some  future  time,  under  whatever  conditions,  had  been  promised,  it  would 
then  have  been  looked  upon  as  a  favor.  The  most  uncompromising  rebels 
prepared  for  leaving  the  country.  The  masses  remained  in  a  state  of 
fearful  expectancy. 

This  applies  especially  to  those  parts  of  the  country  which  were  within 
immediate  reach  of  our  armies  or  had  previously  been  touched  by  the  war. 
Where  Union  soldiers  had  never  been  seen  and  none  were  near,  people 
were  at  first  hardly  aware  of  the  magnitude  of  the  catastrophe,  and  strove 
to  continue  in  their  old  ways  of  living. 

SuGh  was,  according  to  the  accounts  I  received,  the  character  of  that 
first  period.  The  worst  apprehensions  were  gradually  relieved,  as  day 
after  day  went  by  without  bringing  the  disasters  and  inflictions  which  had 
been  vaguely  anticipated,  until  at  last  the  appearance  of  the  North  Caro- 
lina proclamation  substituted  new  hopes  for  them.  The  development  of 
this  second  period  I  was  called  upon  to  observe  on  the  spot,  and  it  forms 
the  main  subject  of  this  report.  t 

Returning  Loyalty. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  in  the  States  south  of  Tennessee  and  North 
Carolina  the  number  of  white  Unionists  who  during  the  war  actively  aided 
the  government,  or  at  least  openly  professed  their  attachment  to  the  cause 
of  the  Union,  was  very  small. 

The  first  southern  men  wrth  whom  I  came  into  contact  immediately 
after  my  arrival  in  South  Carolina  expressed  their  sentiments  almost 
literally  in  the  following  language  :  "We  acknowledge  ourselves  beaten, 


2 


and  we  are  ready  to  submit  to  the  results  of  the  war.  The  war  has  prac- 
tically decided  that  no  State  shall  secede,  and  that  the  slaves  are  emanci- 
pated. We  cannot  be  expected  at  once  to  give  up  our  principles  and  con- 
victions of  right,  but  we  aeeept  facts  as  they  are,  and  desire  to  be  reinstated 
as  soon  as  possible  in  the  enjoyment  and  exercise  of  our  political  rights." 
This  declaration  was  repeated  to  me  hundreds  of  times  in  every  State  I 
visited,  with  some  variations  of  language,  according  to  the  different  ways 
of  thinking  or  the  frankness  or  reserve  of  the  different  speakers.  Some 
said  nothing  of  adhering  to  their  old  principles  and  convictions  of  right ; 
others  still  argued  against  the  constitutionality  of  coercion  and  of  the 
emancipation  proclamation ;  others  expressed  their  determination  to  be- 
come good  citizens,  in  strong  language,  and  urged  with  equal  emphasis 
the  necessity  of  their  home  institutions  being  at  once  left  to  their  own 
control ;  others  would  go  so  far  as  to  say  they  were  glad  that  the  war 
was  ended,  and  they  had  never  had  any  confidence  in  the  confederacy ; 
ethers  protested  that  they  had  been  opposed  to  secession  until  their  States 
went  out,  and  then  3Tielded  to  the  current  of  events  ;  some  would  give  me 
to  understand  that  they  had  alwaj'S  been  good  Union  men  at  heart,  and 
rejoiced  that  the  war  had  terminated  in  favor  of  the  national  cause,  but  in 
most  cases  such  a  sentiment  was  expressed  only  in  a  whisper ;  others  a^ain 
would  grumblingly  insist  upon  the  restoration  of  their  "rights,"  as  if  they 
had  done  no  wrong,  and  indicated  plainly  that  the}'  would  submit  only  to 
what  they  could  not  resist  and  as  long  as  they  could  not  resist  it.  Such 
were  the  definitions  of  "returning  loyalty"  I  received  from  the  mouths  of 
a  large  number  of  individuals  intelligent  enough  to  appreciate  the  meaning 
of  the  expressions  they  used. 

Upon  the  ground  of  these  declarations,  and  other  evidence  gathered  in 
the  course  of  my  observations,  I  may  group  the  Southern  people  into  four 
classes,  each  of  which  exercises  an  influence  upon  the  development  of  things 
in  that  section : 

1 .  Those  who,  although  having  yielded  submission  to  the  national  govern- 
ment only  when  obliged  to  do  so,  have  a  clear  perception  of  the  irreversible 
changes  produced  by  the  war,  and  honestly  endeavor  to  accommodate  them- 
selves to  the  new  order  of  things.  Many  of  them  are  not  free  from  traditional 
prejudice,  but  open  to  conviction,  and  may  be  expected  to  act  in  good  faith 
whatever  they  do.  This  class  is  composed,  in  its  majority,  of  persons  of 
mature  age — planters,  merchants,  and  professional  men  ;  some  of  them  are 
active  in  the  reconstruction  movement,  but  boldness  and  energy  are,  with  a 
few  individual  exceptions,  not  among  their  distinguishing  qualities. 

2.  Those  whose  principal  object  is  to  have  the  States  without  delay  restored 
to  their  position  and  influence  in  the  Union  and  the  people  of  the  States  to 
the  absolute  control  of  their  home  concerns.  They  are  ready,  in  order  to 
attain  that  object,  to  make  any  ostensible  concession  that  will  not  prevent 
them  from  arranging  things  to  suit  their  taste  as  soon  as  that  object  is 
attained.  This  class  comprises  a  considerable  number,  probably  a  large 
majority  of  the  professional  politicians  who  are  extremely  active  in  the 
reconstruction  movement.  They  are  loud  in  their  praise  of  the  President's 
reconstruction  policy,  and  clamorous  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  Federal 
troops  and  the  abolition  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau. 

3.  The  incorrigibles,  who  still  indulge  in  the  swagger  which  was  so  cus- 
tomary before  and  during  the  war,  and  still  hope  for  a  time  when  the  Southern 
Confederacy  will  achieve  its  independence.  This  class  consists  mostly  of 
young  men.  and  comprises  the  loiterers  of  the  town  and  the  idlers  of  the 
countiy.  They  persecute  Union  men  and  negroes  whenever  they  can  do 
so  with  impunity,  insist  clamorously  upon  their  "rights,"  and  are  extremely 


^  3 

impatient  of  the  presence  of  the  Federal  soldiers.  A  good  many  of  them 
have  taken  the  oaths  of  allegiance  and  amnesty,  and  associated  themselves 
with  the  second  class  in  their  political  operations.  This  element  is  by  no 
means  unimportant ;  it  is  strong  in  numbers,  deals  in  brave  talk,  addresses 
itself  directly  and  incessantly  to  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  the  masses, 
and  commands  the  admiration  of  the  women. 

4.  The  multitude  of  people  who  have  no  definite  ideas  about  the  circum- 
stances under  which  they  live  and  about  the  course  they  have  to  follow ; 
whose  intellects  are  weak,  but  whose  prejudices  and  impulses  are  strong,  and 
who  are  apt  to  be  carried  along  by  those  who  know  how  to  appeal  to  the  latter. 

Oath-taking. 

A  demonstration  of  "  returning  loyalty"  of  a  more  positive  character  is  the 
taking  of  the  oaths  of  allegiance  and  amnesty  prescribed  by  the  general  gov- 
ernment. At  first  the  number  of  personswho  availed  themselves  of  the  oppor- 
tunities offered  for  abjuring  their  adhesion  to  the  cause  of  the  rebellion  way 
not  very  large,  but  it  increased  considerably  when  the  obtaining  of  a  pardon 
and  the  right  of  voting  were  made  dependent  upon  the  previous  performance 
of  that  act.  In  some  cases  the  taking  of  the  oath  was  publicly  recommended 
in  newspapers  and  addresses  with  sneering  remarks,  and  I  have  listened  to 
many  private  conversations  in  which  it  was  treated  with  contempt  and  ridi- 
cule. VvThile  it  was  not  generally  looked  upon  in  the  States  I  visited  as  a 
very  serious  matter,  except  as  to  the  benefits  and  privileges  it  confers,  I 
have  no  doubt  that  a  great  many  persons  took  it  fully  conscious  of  the 
obligations  it  imposes,  and  honestly  intending  to  fulfil  them. 

On  the  whole,  it  may  be  said  tjmt  the- value  of  the  oaths  taken  in  tha 
Southern  States  is  neither  above  nor  below  the  value  of  the  political  oaths 
taken  in  other  countries.  A  historical  examination  of  the  subjectx>f  political 
oaths  will  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  they  can  be  very  serviceable  in  certain 
emergencies  and  for  certain  objects,  but  that  they  have  never  insured  the 
stability  of  a  government,  and  never  improved  the  morals  of  a  people. 

Feeling  towards  the  Soldiers  and  the  People  op  the  North. 

A  more  substantial  evidence  of  "  returning  loyalty"  would  be  a  favorable 
change  of  feeling  with  regard  to  the  government's  friends  and  agents,  and 
the  people  of  the  loyal  States  generally. 

But  no  instance  has  come  to  my  notice  in  which  the  people  of  a  city  or  a 
rural  district  cordially  fraternized  with  the  army.  Here  and  there  the  sol- 
diers were  welcomed  as  protectors  against  apprehended  dangers  ;  but  general 
exhibitions  of  cordiality  on  the  part  of  the  population  I  have  not  heard  of. 
There  are,  indeed,  honorable  individual  exceptions  to  this  rule.  Many  per- 
sons, mostly  belonging  to  the  first  of  the  four  classes  above  enumerated, 
are  honestly  striving  to  soften  down  the  bitter  feelings  and  traditional 
antipathies  of  their  neighbors ;  others,  who  are  acting  more  upon  motives 
of  policy  than  inclination,  maintain  pleasant  relations  with  the  officers  of 
the  government.  But,  upon  the  whole,  the  soldier  of  the  Union  is  still 
looked  upon  as  a  stranger,  an  intruder — as  the  "  Yankee,"  "the  enemy." 
No  observing  northern  man  can  come  into  contact  with  the  different  classes 
composing  southern  society  without  noticing  this  aversion.  He  may  be 
received  in  social  circles  with  great  politeness,  even  with  apparent  cordialit}'; 
but  soon  he  will  become  aware  that,  although  he  may  be  esteemed  as  a  man, 
he  is  detested  as  a  "Yankee,"  and,  as  the  conversation  becomes  a  little 
more  confidential,  and  throws  off  ordinary  restraint,  he  is  not  unfrequently 
told  so  ;  the  word  "  Yankee"  still  signifies  to  them  those  traits  of  character 
which  the  southern  press  has  been  so  long  in  the  habit  of  attributing 


4 

to  the  northern  people  ;  and  whenever  they  look  around  them  upon  the 
traces  of  the  war,  they  sec  in  them,  not  the  consequences  of  their  own  folly, 
but  the  evidences  of  "Yankee  wickedness."  In  making  these  general 
statements,  I  beg  to  be  understood  as  alwa}Ts  excluding  the  individual  ex- 
ceptions above  mentioned. 

Situation  op  Unionists. 

It  would  have  been  a  promising  indication  of  returning  loj'alty  if  the  old, 
consistent,  uncompromising  Unionists  of  the  south  had  received  that 
measure  of  consideration  to  which  their  identification  with  the  new  order 
of  things  entitled  them.  This  appears  to  have  been  the  case  during  that 
"first  period"  of  anxious  uncertainty  when  known  Unionists  were  looked 
up  to  as  men  whose  protection  and  favor  might  be  of  high  value.  At  least 
it  appears  to  have  been  so  in  some  individual  instances.  But  the  close  of 
that  "first  period"  changed  the  aspect  of  things. 

It  struck  me  soon  after  my  arrival  in  the  south  that  the  known  Unionists 
— I  mean  those  who  during  the  war  had  been  to  a  certain  extent  identified 
with  the  national  cause — were  not  in  communion  with  the  leading  social  and 
political  circles  ;  and  the  further  my  observations  extended  the  clearer  it 
became  to  me  that  their  existence  in  the  south  was  of  a  rather  precarious 
nature.  Already  in  Charleston  my  attention  was  called  to  the  current  talk 
among  the  people,  that,  when  they  had  the  control  of  things  once  more  in 
their  own  l^ands,  and  were  no  longer  restrained  by  the  presence  of  "  Yankee"  . 
soldiers,  men  of  Dr.  Mackey's  stamp  would  not  be  permitted  to  live  there. 
At  first  I  did  not  attach  much  importance  to  such  reports  ;  but  as  I  proceeded 
through  the  country,  I  heard  the  same  thing  so  frequently  repeated,  at  so 
many  different  places,  and  by  so  many  different  persons,  that  I  could  no 
longer  look  upon  the  apprehensions  expressed  to  me  by  Unionists  as  entirely 
groundless.  I  found  the  same  opinion  entertained  by  most  of  our  military 
commanders.  Even  Governor  Sharkey,  in  the  course  of  a  conversation  I  had 
with  him  in  the  presence  of  Major-General  Osterhaus,  admitted  that,  if  our 
troops  were  then  withdrawn,  the  lives  of  northern  men  in  Mississippi  would 
not  be  safe.  A  letter,  addressed  to  me  by  General  Osterhaus,  states  that  he 
was  compelled  to  withdraw  the  garrison  from  Attala  county,  Mississippi, 
the  regiment  to  which  that  garrison  belonged  being  mustered  out,  and  that 
when  the  troops  had  been  taken  away,  four  murders  occurred,  two  of  white 
Union  men,  and  two  of  negroes.  He  goes  on  to  say :  "  There  is  no  doubt 
whatever  that  the  state  of  affairs  would  be  intolerable  for  all  Union  men, 
all  recent  immigrants  from  the  north,  and  all  negroes,  the  moment  the  pro- 
tection of  the  United  States  troops  was  withdrawn."  General  Slocum,  in 
his  order  prohibiting  the  organization  of  the  State  militia  in  Mississippi, 
speaks  of  the  "  outrages  committed  against  northern  men,  government 
couriers,  and  negroes."  General  Canby  stated  to  me  that  he  was  obliged 
to  disband  and  prohibit  certain  patrol  organizations  in  Louisiana,  because 
they  indulged  in  the  gratification  of  private  vengeance.  Lieutenant  Hickney, 
assistant  commissioner  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  at  Shreveport,  Louisiana 
says : ' '  The  life  of  a  northern  man  who  is  true  to  his  country,  and  frankly  enun- 
ciates his  principles,  is  not  secure  where  there  is  not  a  military  force  to  pro- 
tect him."  The  affair  of  Scottsborough,  in  the  military  district  of  northern 
Alabama,  where  a  sheriff  arrested  and  attempted  to  bring  to  trial  for  murder 
Union  soldiers  who  had  served  against  the  guerrillas  in  that  part  of  the 
country,  an  attempt  which  was  frustrated  only  by  the  prompt  interference  of 
the  district  commander,  has  become  generally  known  through  the  news- 
papers. 

It  is  true  these  are  mere  isolated  cases,  for  which  i  would  be  wrong  to  1 


5 


hold  anybody  responsible  who  was  not  connected  with  them ;  but  it  is  also 
true  that  the  apprehensions  so  widely  spread  among  the  Unionists  and 
northern  men  were  based  upon  the  spirit  exhibited  by  the  people  among 
whom  they  lived.  I  found  a  good  many  thinking  of  removing  themselves 
and  their  families  to  the  northern  States,  and  if  our  troops  should  be  soon 
withdrawn,  the  exodus  will  probably  become  quite  extensive,  unless  things 
meanwhile  change  for  the  better. 

Aspect  of  the  Political  Field. 

The  status  of  this  class  of  Unionists  in  the  political  field  corresponds  with 
what  I  have  said  above.  I  was  in  Mississippi  immediately  after  the  adjourn- 
ment of  the  State  convention,  and  while  the  canvass  preparatory  to  the 
election  of  the  legislature  and  of  the  State  and  county  officers  Was  going 
on.  Events  have  since  sufficiently  developed  themselves  in  the  other  States 
to  permit  us  to  judge  how  far- Mississippi  can  be  regarded  as  a  representative 
of  the  rest. 

The  Mississippi  convention  was,  in  its  majority,  composed  of  men  belong- 
ing to  the  first  two  of  the  four  classes  above  mentioned.  There  were  several 
Union  men  in  it  of  the  inoffensive,  compromising  kind — men  who  had  been 
opposed  to  secession  in  the  beginning,  and  had  abstained  from  taking  a 
prominent  part  in  the  rebellion  unless  obliged  to  do  so,  but  who  had  at  least 
readily  acquiesced  in  what  was  going  on.  But  there  was,  as  far  as  I  have 
been  able  to  ascertain,  only  one  man  there  who,  like  the  Unionists  of  East 
Tennessee,  had  offered  active  resistance  to  the  rebel  authorities.  This  was 
Mr.  Crawford,  of  Jones  county  ;  he  was  elected  by  the  poor  people  of  that 
region,  his  old  followers,  as  their  acknowledged  leader,  and  his  may  justly 
be  looked  upon  as  an  exceptional  case.  ' 

The  impulses  by  which  voters  were  actuated  in  making  their  choice  ap- 
peared more  clearly  in  the  canvass  for  State  officers,  Congressmen,  and 
members  of  the  legislature.  A  Union  meeting  at  Vicksburg  may,  therefore, 
be  produced  as  a  not  unfavorable  exponent  of  Mississippi  Unionism.  The 
speakers  represented  themselves  as  Union  men,  and  I  have  learned  nothing 
about  them  that  would  cast  suspicion  upon  the  sincerity  of  their  declarations 
as  far  as  they  go ;  but  all  there  qualified  their  Unionism  by  the  same  im- 
portant statement.  Mr.  Cooper:  "  In  1850  I  opposed  an  attempt  to  break 
up  the  United  States  government,  and  in  1860  I  did  the  same.  I  travelled 
in  Alabama  and  Mississippi  to  oppose  the  measure.  (Applause.)  But  after 
the  State  did  secede,  I  did  all  in  my  power  to  sustain  it."  (Heavy  applause.) 
Mr.  Evans  In  1861  I  was  a  delegate  from  Lauderdale  county  to  the  State 
convention,  then  and  in  1860  being  opposed  to  the  act  of  secession,  and 
fought  against  it  with  all  my  powers.  But  when  the  State  had  seceded,  I 
went  with  it  as  a  matter  of  dut}^,  and  I  sustained  it  until  the  day  of  the 
surrender  with  all  my  body  and  heart  and  mind."  (Great  applause.) 

These  speeches,  fair  specimens  of  a  majority  of  those  delivered  by  the 
better  class  of  politicians  before  the  better  class  of  audiences,  furnish  an 
indication  of  the  kind  of  Unionism  which,  by  candidates,  is  considered 
palatable  to  the  people  of  that  region. 

When,  at  the  commencement  of  the  war,  Kentucky  resolved  to  remain  in 
the  Union,  Mr.  Hogan,  so  he  informs  the  constituency,  was  a  citizen  of 
Kentucky  ;  because  Kentucky  refused  to  leave  the  Union  Mr.  Hogan  left 
Kentucky.  He  went  to  Mississippi,  joined  the  rebel  arnry,  and  was  wounded 
in  battle  ;  and  because  he  left  his  native  State  to  fight  against  the  Union, 
"therefore,"  Mr.  Hogan  tells  his  Mississippian  constituency,  "he  cannot 
feel  that  he  is  an  alien  in  their  midst,  and,  with  something  of  confidence  in 
the  result,  appeals  to  them  for  their  suffrages." 


6 


j  I  am  sure  no  Mississippian  will  deny  that  if  a  candidate  there  based  his 
claims  upon  the  ground  of  his  having  left  Mississippi  when  the  State 
seceded,  in  order  to  fight  for  the  Union,  his  pretensions  would  be  treated 
as  a  piece  of  impudence. 

The  kind  of  Patriotism  taught  in  Schools. 

While  I  was  in  New  Orleans  an  occurrence  took  place  which  may  be  quoted 
as  an  illustration  of  the  sweep  of  what  I  might  call  the  reactionary  move- 
ment. When  General  Shepley  was  military  governor  of  Louisiana,  under 
General  Butler's  regime,  a  school  board  was  appointed  for  the  purpose  of 
reorganizing  the  public  schools  of  New  Orleans.  A  corps  of  loyal  teachers 
was  appointed,  and  the  education  of  the  children  was  conducted  with  a  view 
to  make  them  loyal  citizens.  The  national  airs  were  frequently  sung  in  the 
schools,  and  other  exercises  introduced,  calculated  to  impregnate  the  youth- 
ful minds  of  the  pupils  with  affection  for  their  country.  It  appears  that 
this  feature  of  the  public  schools  was  distasteful  to  that  class  of  people 
with  whose  feelings  they  did  not  accord. 

Mr.  II.  Kennedy,  acting  mayor  of  New  Orleans,  early  in  September  last, 
disbanded  the  school  board  which  so  far  had  conducted  the  educational  af- 
fairs of  the  city,  and  appointed  a  new  one.  The  composition  of  this  nefw 
school  board  was  such  as  to  induce  General  Canby  to  suspend  its  functions 
until  he  could  inquire  into  the  loyalty  of  its  members.  He  found  that  a 
large  majority  of  the  members  had  sympathized  with  the  rebellion,  and 
aided  the  confederate  government  in  a  variety  of  ways.  But  as  no 
evidence  was  elicited  proving  the  members  legally  incapable  of  holding 
office,  General  Canb}'  considered  himself  obliged  to  remove  the  prohibition^ 
and  the  new  school  board*  entered  upon  its  functions. 

Without  offering  any  comment  of  my  own,  I  annex  an  editorial  taken  from 
the  "New  Orleans  Times,"  of  September  12.  "  The  schools  of  New  Orleans 
have  been  institutions  so  intensely  and  demonstratively  lo}~al  as  to  become 
unpopular  with  those  of  our  fellow-citizens  to  whom  such  demonstrations 
are  distasteful,  and  they  must  be  brought  back  under  '  popular  control,'  so 
as  to  make  them  cease  to  be  obnoxious  in  that  particular."  It  was  gener- 
ally understood,  when  the  new  school  board  was  appointed,  that  a  Mr. 
Rodgers  was  to  be  made  superintendent  of  public  schools.  In  Major 
Lowell's  report  to  General  Canby  this  Mr.  Rodgers  figures  as  follows  :  "  Mr. 
Rodgers,  the  candidate  for  the  position  of  superintendent  of  public  schools, 
held  the  same  office  at  the  commencement  of  the  war.  His  conduct  at  that 
time  was  imbued  with  extreme  bitterness  and  hate  towards  the  United 
States,  and,  in  his  capacity  as  superintendent,  he  introduced  the  *  Bonnie 
Blue  Flag'  and  other  rebel  songs  into  the  exercises  of  the  schools  under  his 
charge.  In  histories  and  other  books  where  the  initials  '  U.  S.'  occurred  he 
had  the  same  erased,  and  '  C.  S.'  substituted.  He  used  all  means  in  his 
power  to  imbue  the  minds  of  the  youth  intrusted  to  his  care  with  hate  and 
malignity  towards  the  Union.  He  has  just  returned  from  the  late  confed- 
eracy, A*here  he  lias  resided  during  the  war.  At  the  timeihe  left  the  city  to 
Join  the  army  he  left  his  property  in  the  care  of  one  Finley,  who  claims  to 
be  a  British  subject,  but  held  the  position  of  sergeant  in  a  confederate  re- 
giment of  militia."  No  sooner  was  the  above-mentioned  prohibition  by 
General  Canby  removed  when  Mr.  Rodgers  was  actually  appointed,  and  lie 
now  presides  over  the  educational  interests  of  New  Orleans.  There  is 
something  like  system  in  such  proceedings. 

Treason  not  odious. 
There  are  two  principal  points  to  which  I  beg  to  call  your  attention.  In 


7 


the  first  place,  the  rapid  return  to  power  and  influence  of  so  many  of  those 
who  but  recently  were  engaged  in  a  bitter  war  against  the  Union  has  had 
,one  effect,  which  was  certainly  not  originally  contemplated  by  the  govern- 
ment. Treason  does,  under  existing  circumstances,  not  appear  odious  in  the 
south.  The  people  are  not  impressed  with  any  sense  of  its  criminality.  And. 
secondly,  there  is,  as  yet,  among  the  southern  people  an  utter  absence  of 
national  feeling.  I  made  it  a  business,  while  in  the  south,  to  watch  the 
symptoms  of  "  returning  loyalty"  as  they  appeared  not  only  in  private  con- 
versation, but  in  the  public  press  and  in  the  speeches  delivered  and  the  re- 
solutions passed  at  Union  meetings.  Hardly  ever  was  there  an  expression 
of  hearty  attachment  to  the  great  republic,  or  an  appeal  to  the  impulses  of 
patriotism  ;  but  whenever  submission  to  the  national  authorhVy  was  declared 
and  advocated,  it  was  almost  uniformly  placed  upon  two  principal  grounds  : 
that,  under  present  circumstances,  the  southern  people  could  "do  no  better;" 
and  then  that  submission  was  the  only  means  by  which  they  could  rid  them- 
selves of  the  federal  soldiers  and  obtain  once  more  control  of  their  own  affairs. 

Repudiation  of  our  War  Debt. 

But  there  is  another  matter  claiming  the  attention  and  foresight  of  the 
government.  It  is  well  known  that  the  levying  of  taxes  for  the  pa}^ment 
of  the  interest  on  our  national  debt  is,  and  will  continue  to  be,  very  un- 
popular in  the  south.  It  is  true,  no  striking  demonstrations  have  as  yet  been 
made  of  any  decided  unwillingness  on  the  part  of  the  people  to  contribute  to 
the  discharge  of  our  national  obligations.  But  most  of  the  conversations 
I  had  with  southerners  upon  this  subject  led  me  to  apprehend  that  the}-, 
politicians  and  people,  are  rather  inclined  to  ask  monejr  of  the  government 
as  compensation  for  their  emancipated  slaves,  for  the  rebuilding  of  the  levees 
on  the  Mississippi,  and  various  kind  of  damage  done  by  our  armies  for 
military  purposes,  than,  as  the  current  expression  is,  to  "help  pay  the 
expenses  of  the  whipping  they  have  received."  In  fact,  there  are  abundant 
indications  in  newspaper  articles,  public  speeches,  and  electioneering  docu- 
ments of  candidates,  which  render  it  eminently  probable  that  on  the  claim 
of  compensation  for  their  emancipated  slaves  the  southern  States,  as  soon 
as  readmitted  to  representation  in  Congress,  will  be  almost  a  unit.  In  the 
Mississippi  convention  the  idea  was  broached  by  Mr.  Potter,  in  an  elaborate 
speech,  to  have  the  late  slave  States  relieved  from  taxation  "for  years  to 
come,"  in  consideration  of  "  debt  due  them"  for  the  emancipated  slaves  ;  and 
this  plea  I  have  frequently  heard  advocated  in  private  conversations.  I 
need  not  go  into  details  as  to  the  efforts  made  in  some  of  the  southern  States 
in  favor  of  the  assumption  by  those  States  of  their  debts  contracted  during 
the  rebellion.  It  may  be  assumed  with  certainty  that  those  who  want  to 
have  the  southern  people,  poor  as  they  are,  taxed  for  the  payment  of  rebel 
debts,  do  not  mean  to  have  them  taxed  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  our 
national  obligations.  But  whatever  devices  may  be  resorted  to,  present  in- 
dications justify  the  apprehension  that  the  enforcement  of  our  revenue  laws 
will  meet  with  a  refractory  spirit,  and  may  require  sterner  measures  than 
| the  mere  sending  of  revenue  officers  into  that  part  of  the  country. 

The  Negro  Question. 

That  the  result  of  the  free  labor  experiment  made  under  circumstances  so 
extremely  unfavorable  should  at  once  be  a  perfect  success,  no  reasonable 
person  would  expect.  Nevertheless,  a  large  majority  of  the  southern  men 
with  whom  I  came  in  contact  announced  their  opinions  with  so  positive  an 
j assurance  as  to  produce  the  impression  that  their  minds  were  fullv  made  up. 
In  at  least  nineteen  cases  of  twenty  the  reply  I  received  to  my  inquiry  about 


8 


their  views  on  the  new  system  was  uniform!}-  this  :  "  You  cannot  make  the 
negro  work  without  physical  compulsion."  I  heard  this  hundreds  of  times, 
heard  it  wherever  I  went,  heard  it  in  nearly  the  same  words  from  so  many 
different  persons,  that  at  last  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  this  is  the  pre- 
vailing sentiment  among  the  southern  people.  There  are  exceptions  to  this 
rule,  but,  as  far  as  my  information  extends,  far  from  enough  to  affect  the 
rule. 

Unfortunately  the  disorders  necessarily  growing  out  of  the  transition 
state  continually  furnished  food  for  argument.  Every  irregularity  that 
i  ccurred  was  directly  charged  against  the  s}Tstem  of  free  labor.  If  some 
negroes  shirked,  or  did  not  perform  their  task  with  sufficient  alacrity, 
it  was  produced  as  irrefutable  evidence  to  show  that  physical  compulsion 
was  actually  indispensable  to  make  the  negro  work.  If  negroes,  idlers 
or  refugees  crawling  about  the  towns,  applied  to  the  authorities  for  sub- 
sistence, it  was  quoted  as  incontestably  establishing  the  point  that  the 
negro  was  too  improvident  to  take  care  of  himself,  and  must  necessarily  be 
consigned  to  the  care  of  a  master.  I  heard  a  Georgia  planter  argue  most 
seriously  that  one  of  his  negroes  had  shown  himself  certainly  unfit  for  free- 
dom because  he  impudently  refused  to  submit  to  a  whipping.  It  frequently 
struck  me  that  persons  who  conversed  about  every  other  subject  calmly  and 
sensibly  would  lose  their  temper  as  soon  as  the  negro  question  was  touched. 

A  belief,  conviction,  or  prejudice,  or  whatever  you  may  call  it,  so  widely 
spread  and  apparent^  so  deepty  rooted  as  this,  that  the  negro  will  not  work 
without  physical  compulsion,  is  certainly  calculated  to  have  a  very  serious 
influence  upon  the  conduct  of  the  people  entertaining  it.  In  many  instances 
negroes  who  walked  away  from  the  plantations,  or  were  found  upon  the 
roads,  were  shot  or  were  otherwise  severely  punished,  which  was  calculated 
to  produce  the  impression  among  those  remaining  with  their  masters  that 
an  attempt  to  escape  from  slavery  would  result  in  certain  destruction. 

Brigadier-General  Fessenden  reported  to  Major-General  Gilmore  from 
Winnsboro',  South  Carolina,  July  19,  as  follows  :  "  The  spirit  of  the  peo- 
ple, especially  in  those  districts  not  subject  to  the  salutary  influence  of 
General  Sherman's  army,  is  that  of  concealed  and,  in  some  instances,  of 
open  hostility,  though  there  are  some  who  strive  with  honorable  good  faith 
to  promote  a  thorough  reconciliation  between  the  government  and  their  peo- 
ple. A  spirit  of  bitterness  and  persecution  manifests  itself  towards  the 
negroes.  They  are  shot  and  abused  outside  the  immediate  protection  of  our 
forces  by  men  icho  announce  their  determination  to  take  the  laic  into  their 
awn  hands,  in  defiance  of  our  authority.  To  protect  the  negro  and  punish 
these  still  rebellious  individuals  it  will  be  necessary  to  have  this  country 
pretty  thickly  settled  with  soldiers. "  I  received  similar  verbal  reports  from 
other  parts  of  South  Carolina.  To  show  the  hopes  still  indulged  in  by 
some,  I  may  mention  that  one  of  the  sub-district  commanders,  as  he  him- 
self informed  me,  knew  planters  within  the  limits  of  his  command  who  had 
made  contracts  with  their  former  slaves  avowedly  for  the  object  of  keeping 
them  together  on  their  plantations,  so  that  they  might  have  them  near  at 
hand,  and  thus  more  easily  reduce  them  to  their  former  condition,  when, 
after  the  restoration  of  the  civil  power,  the  "  unconstitutional  emancipation 
proclamation"  would  be  set  aside. 

Cases  in  which  negroes  were  kept  on  the  plantations,  either  by  ruse  or 
violence,  were  frequent  enough  in  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  to  call  forth 
from  General  Saxton  a  circular  threatening  planters  who  persisted  in  this 
practice  with  loss  of  their  property.  At  Atlanta,  Georgia,  1  had  an  oppor- 
tunity  to  examine  some  cases  of  the  nature  above  described  myself.  While 
I  was  there,  9th  and  10th  of  August,  several  negroes  came  into  town  with 


9 


bullet  and  buckshot  wounds  in  their  bodies.  From  their  statements,  which, 
however,  were  only  corroborating  information  previously  received,  it  ap- 
peared that  the  reckless  and  restless  characters  of  that  region  had  combined 
to  keep  the  negroes  where  they  belonged.  Several  freedmen  were  shot  in 
the  attempt  Vo  escape,  others  succeeded  in  eluding  the  vigilance  of  their 
persecutors  ;  large  numbers,  terrified  by  what  they  saw  and  heard,  quietly 
remained  under  the  restraint  imposed  upon  them,  waiting  for  better  oppor- 
tunities. The  commander  of  the  sub-district  and  post  infowned  me  that 
bands  of  guerrillas  were  prowling  about  within  a  few  miles  of  the  city,  making 
it  dangerous  for  soldiers  and  freedmen  to  show  themselves  outside  of  the 
immediate  reach  of  the  garrison,  and  that  but  a  few  days  previous  to  my 
arrival  a  small  squad  of  men  he  had  sent  out  to  serve  an  order  upon  a 
planter,  concerning  the  treatment  of  freedmen,  had  been  driven  back  by  an 
armed  band  of  over  twenty  men,  headed  by  an  individual  in  the  uniform  of 
a  rebel  officer. 

The  provost-marshal  at  Selma,  Alabama,  Major  J.  P.  Houston,  says : 
"  There  have  come  to  my  notice  officially  twelve  cases,  in  which  I  am 
morally  certain  the  trials  have  not  been  had  yet,  that  negroes  were  killed 
by  whites.  In  a  majority  of  cases  the  provocation  consisted  in  the  negroes 
trying  to  come  to  town  or  to  return  to  the  plantation  after  having  been 
sent  away.  The  cases  above  enumerated,  I  am  convinced,  are  but  a  small 
part  of  those  that  have  actually  been  perpetrated. "  In  a  report  to  Gen.  Swayne 
assistant  commissioner  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  in  Alabama,  communicated 
to  me  by  the  General,  Captain  Poillon,  agent  of  the  bureau  at  Mobile,  says  of 
the  condition  of  things  in  the  southwestern  part  of  the  State,  July  29  : 
"  There  are  regular  patrols  posted  on  the  rivers,  who  board  some  of  the 
boats  ;  after  the  boats  leave  they  hang,  shoot,  or  drown  the  victims  they 
may  find  on  them,  and  all  those  found  on  the  roads  or  coming  down  the  rivers 
are  almost  invariably  murdered.  *  *  *  *  The  bewildered  and  terri- 
fied freedmen  know  not  what  to  do — to  leave  is  death  ;  to  remain  is  to  surfer 
the  increased  burden  imposed  upon  them  by  the  cruel  taskmaster,  whose  only 
interest  is  their  labor,  wrung  from  them  b}~  every  device  an  inhuman  inge- 
nuity can  devise  ;  hence  the  lash  and  murder  is  resorted  to  to  intimidate 
those  whom  fear  of  an  awful  death  alone  cause  to  remain,  while  patrols,  ne- 
gro dogs  and  spies,  disguised  as  Yankees,  keep  constant  guard  over  these 
unfortunate  people."  In  a  letter  addressed  to  myself,  September  9,  Captain 
Poillon  says  :  "  Organized  patrols,  with  negro  hounds,  keep  guard  over 
the  thoroughfares  ;  bands  of  lawless  robbers  traverse  the  county,  and  the 
unfortunate  who  attempts  to  escape,  or  he  who  returns  for  his  wife  or  child,  is 
waylaid  or  pursued  with  hounds,  and  shot  or  hung." 

Here  I  will  insert  some  remarks  on  the  general  treatment  of  the  blacks  as 
a  class,  from  the  whites  as  a  class.  It  is  not  on  the  plantations  and  at  the 
hands  of  the  planters  themselves  that  the  negroes  have  to  suffer  the  greatest 
hardships.  Not  only  the  former  slaveholders,  but  the  non-slaveholding 
whites,  who,  even  previous  to  the  war,  seemed  to  be  more  ardent  in  their 
pro-slavery  feelings  than  the  planters  themselves,  are  possessed  by  a  singu- 
larly bitter  and  vindictive  feeling  against  the  colored  race  since  the  negro 
has  ceased  to  be  property.  The  pecuniary  value  which  the  individual  negro 
formerly  represented  having  disappeared,  the  maiming  and  killing  of  colored 
men  seems  to  be  looked  upon  by  many  as  one  of  those  venial  offences  which 
must  be  forgiven  to  the  outraged  feelings  of  a  wronged  and  robbed  people. 
Besides,  the  services  rendered  by  the  negro  to  the  national  cause  during  the 
war,  which  make  him  an  object  of  special  interest  to  the  loyal  people,  make 
him  an  object  of  particular  vindictiveness  to  those  whose  hearts  were  set 
upon  the  success  of  the  rebellion.    The  number  of  murders  and  assaults  per- 


10 


petrated  upon  negroes  is  very  great ;  we  can  form  only  an  approximate  esti- 
mate of  what  is  going  on  in  those  parts  of  the  south  which  are  not  closely 
garrisoned,  and  from  which  no  regular  reports  are  received,  by  what  occurs 
under  the  very  eyes  of  our  military  authorities.  As  to  my  personal  experi- 
ence, I  will  only  mention  that  during  my  two  days  sojourn  at  Atlanta,  one 
negro  was  stabbed  with  fatal  effect  on  the  street,  and  three  were  poisoned, 
one  of  whom  died.  While  I  was  at  Montgomery,  one  negro  was  cut  across 
the  throat  evidently  with  intent  to  kill,  and  another  was  shot,  but  both  es- 
caped with  their  lives.  Several  papers  attached  to  this  report  give  an  ac- 
count of  the  number  of  capital  cases  that  occurred  at  certain  places  during 
a  certain  period  of  time.  It  is  a  sad  fact  that  the  perpetration  of  those  acts 
is  not  confined  to  that  class  of  people  which  might  be  called  the  rabble. 
Several  "  gentlemen  of  standing"  have  been  tried  before  military  commis- 
sions for  such  offences. 

General  Ideas  and  Schemes  of  Whites  Concerning  the  Freedmen. 

Some  of  the  planters  with  whom  I  had  occasion  to  converse  expressed 
their  determination  to  adopt  the  course  which  best  accords  with  the  spirit 
of  free  labor,  to  make  the  negro  work  by  offering  him  fair  inducements,  to 
stimulate  his  ambition,  and  to  extend  to  him  those  means  of  intellectual 
and  moral  improvement  which  are  best  calculated  to  make  him  an  intelligent, 
reliable  and  efficient  free  laborer  and  a  good  and  useful  citizen.  Those  who 
expressed  such  ideas  were  almost  invariably  professed  Union  men,  and  far 
above  the  average  in  point  of  mental  ability  and  culture.  I  found  a  very 
few  instances  of  original  secessionists  also  Manifesting  a  willingness  to  give 
the  free-labor  experiment  a  fair  trial.  I  can  represent  the  sentiments  of 
this  small  class  in  no  better  way  than  by  quoting  the  language  used  by  an 
Alabama  judge  in  a  conversation  with  me.  "  I  am  one  of  the  most  tho- 
roughly whipped  men  in  the  south,"  said  he  ;  "  I  am  a  genuine  old  secession- 
ist, and  I  believe  now,  as  I  always  did,  we  had  the  constitutional  right  to 
secede.  But  the  war  has  settled  that  matter,  and  it  is  all  over  now.  As  to 
this  thing  of  free  negro  labor,  I  do  not  believe  in  it,  but  I  will  give  it  a  fair 
trial.  I  have  a  plantation  and  am  going  to  make  contracts  with  my  hands, 
and  then  I  want  a  real  Yankee  to  run  the  machine  for  me  ;  not  one  of  your 
New  Yorkers  or  Pennsylvanians,  but  the  genuine  article  from  Massachu- 
setts or  Vermont — one  who  can  not  only  farm,  but  sing  Psalms  and  pray, 
and  teach  school — a  real  abolitionist,  who  believes  in  the  thing  just  as  I 
don't  believe  in  it.  If  he  does  not  succeed,  I  shall  consider  it  proof  conclu- 
sive that  you  are  wrong  and  I  am  right."  • 

I  regret  to  say  that  views  and  intentions  so  reasonable  I  found  confined 
to  a  small  minority.  Aside  from  the  assumption  that  the  negro  will  not 
work  without  physical  compulsion,  there  appears  to  be  another  popular  no- 
tion prevalent  in  the  south,  which  stands  as  no  less  serious  an  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  a  successful  solution  of  the  problem.  It  is  that  the  negro  exists  for 
the  special  object  of  raising  cotton,  rice  and  sugar  for  pic  whites,  and  that 
it  is  illegitimate  for  him  to  indulge,  like  other  people,  in  the  pursuit  of  his 
own  happiness  in  his  own  way  Although  it  is  admitted  that  he  has  ceased 
to  be  the  property  of  a  master,  it  is  not  admitted  that  he  has  a  right  to  be- 
come his  own  master.  As  Colonel  Thomas,  assistant  commissioner  of  the 
Freeclmen's  Bureau  in  Mississippi,  in  a  letter  addressed  to  me,  very  pun- 
gently  expresses  it :  "  The  whites  esteem  the  blacks  their  property  by  natu- 
ral right,  and,  however  much  they  may  admit  that  the  relations  of  masters 
and  slaves  have  been  destroyed  by  the  war  and  by  the  President's  emancipa- 
tion proclamation,  they  still  have  an  ingrained  feeling  that  the  blacks  at 
large  belong  to  the  whites  at  large,  and  whenever  opportunity  serves,  they 


11 


treat  the  colored  people  just  as  their  profit,  caprice  or  passion  may  dictate. 
An  ingrained  feeling  like  this  is  apt  to  bring  forth  that  sort  of  class  legis- 
lation which  produces  laws  to  govern  one  class  with  no  other  view  than  to 
benefit  another.  This  tendency  can  be  distinctly  traced  in  the  various 
schemes  for  regulating  labor  which  here  and  there  see  the  light." 

Immediately  after  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  when  the  general  con- 
fusion was  most  perplexing,  the  prevalent  desire  among  the  whites  seemed 
to  be,  if  they  could  not  retain  their  negroes  as  slaves,  to  get  rid  of  them 
entirely,  Wild  speculations  were  indulged  in,  how  to  remove  the  colored 
population  at  once  and  to  import  white  laborers  to  fill  its  place  ;  how  to  ob- 
tain a  sufficient  supply  of  coolies,  &c,  &c.  Even  at  the  present  moment 
the  removal  of  the  freedmen  is  strongly  advocated  by  those  who  have  the 
traditional  horror  of  a  free  negro,  and  in  some  sections,  especially  where 
the  soil  is  more  adapted  to  the  cultivation  of  cereals  than  the  raising  of  the 
staples,  planters  appear  to  be  inclined  to  drive  the  negroes  away,  at  least 
from  their  plantations.  I  was  informed  by  a  prominent  South  Carolinian, 
in  July,  that  the  planters  in  certain  localities  in  the  northwestern  part  of 
the  State  had  been  on  the  point  of  doing  so,  but  better  counsel  had  been 
made  to  prevail  upon  them;  and  Colonel  Robinson,  9Tth  United  States 
Colored  Infantry,  who  had  been  sent  out  to  several  counties  in  southern 
Alabama  to  administer  the  amnesty  oath,  reported  a  general  disposition 
among  the  planters  of  that  region  to  "set  the  colored  people  who  had  cul- 
tivated their  crops  during  the  summer  adrift  as  soon  as  the  crops  would  be 
secured,  and  not  to  permit  the  negro  t  o  remain  upon  any  footing  of  equality 
with  the  white  man  in  that  county."  The  disposition  to  drive  away  all 
the  negroes  from  the  plantations  was  undoubtedly  confined  to  a  few  dis- 
tricts ;  and  as  far  as  the  scheme  of  wholesale  deportation  is  concerned,  prac- 
tical men  became  aware,  that  if  they  wanted  to  have  any  labor  done,  it  would 
have  been  bad  policy  to  move  away  the  laborers  they  now  have  before  others 
were  there  to  fill  their  places.  All  these  devices  promising  at  best  only 
distant  relief,  and  free  negro  labor  being  the  only  thing  in  immediate  pros- 
pect, many  ingenious  heads  set  about  to  solve  the  problem,  how  to  make 
free  labor  compulsoi^  by  permanent  regulations. 

Shortly  after  the  close  of  the  war  some  South  Carolina  planters  tried  to 
solve  this  problem  by  introducing  into  the  contracts  provisions  leaving  only 
a  small  share  of  the  crops  to  the  freedmen,  subject  to  all  sorts  of  construc- 
tive charges,  and  then  binding  them  to  work  on°  the  indebtedness  they 
might  incur.  It  being  to  a  great  extent  in  the  power  of  the  employer  to 
keep  the  laborer  in  debt  to  him,  the  employer  might  thus  obtain  a  perma- 
nent hold  upon  the  person  of  the  laborer.  It  was  something  like  the  sys- 
tem of  peonage  existing  in  Mexico.  When  these  contracts  were  submitted 
to  the  military  authorities  for  ratification,  General  Hatch,  commanding  at 
Charleston,  at  once  issued  an  order  prohibiting  such  arrangements.  I  had 
an  opportunity  to  examine  one  of  these  contracts,  and  found  it  drawn  up 
with  much  care,  and  evidently  with  a  knowledge  of  the  full  bearings  of  the 
provisions  so  inserted. 

Municipal  Regulation. 

Mr.  W.  B.  Stickney,  agent  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  at  Shreveport, 
Louisiana,  reported  to  the  assistant  commissioner  of  the  bureau  in  Louisi- 
ana as  follows  :  "  August  1. — The  following  is  a  literal  copy  of  a  docu- 
ment brought  to  this  office  by  a  colored  man,  which  is  conclusive  evidence 
that  tflere  are  those  who  still  claim  the  negro  as  their  property : 

"  '  This  boy  Calvin  has  permit  to  hire  to  whom  he  please,  but  I  shall  hold 


12 


him  as  my  propperty  untill  set  Free  by  Congress.  July  1,  1865.  (Signed.) 
E.  V.  Tully.'  M 

An  ordinance  passed  by  the  police  board  of  the  town  of  Opelousas,  Lou- 
isiana, deserves  careful  perusal.  Among  a  number  of  regulations  appl)'- 
ing  exclusively  to  the  negro,  and  depriving  him  of  all  liberty  of  locomo- 
tion, the  following  striking  provisions  are  found : 

Section  3.  No  negro  or  freedman  shall  be  permitted  to  rent  or  keep  a 
house  within  the  limits  of  the  town  under  any  circumstances,  and  any  one 
thus  offending  shall  be  ejected  and  compelled  to  find  an  employer  or  leave 
the  town  in  twenty-four  hours.  The  lessor  or  furnisher  of  the  house  leased 
or  kept  as  above  shall  pay  a  fine  of  ten  dollars  for  each  offence. 

Section  4.  No  negro  or  freedman  shall  reside  within  the  limits  of  the 
town  of  Opelousas  who  is  not  in  the  regular  service  of  some  white  person  or 
former  owner. 

Section  8.  No  freedman  shall  sell,  barter  or  exchange,  any  articles  of 
merchandise  or  traffic  within  the  limits  of  Opelousas  without  permission  in 
writing  from  his  employer,  or  the  mayor,  or  president  of  the  board. 

This  ordinance  was  at  first  approved  by  a  lieutenant  colonel  of  the  United 
States  forces  having  local  command  tiiere,  and  it  is  worthy  of  note  that 
thereupon  the  infection  spread  at  once,  and  similar  ordinances  were  enter- 
tained by  the  police  boards  of  the  town  of  Franklin  and  of  the  parish  of  St. 
Landry.  (Accompanying  document  No.  35.)  The  parish  ordinance  of  St. 
Landry  differs  from  the  town  ordinances  of  Opelousas  and  Franklin  in 
several  points,  and  wherever  there  is  any  difference,  it  is  in  the  direction 
of  greater  severity.  It  imposes  heavier  fines  and  penalties  throughout,  and 
provides,  in  addition,  for  a  sj'stem  of  coporal  punishment.  It  is  also  or- 
dained "that  the  aforesaid  penalties  shall  be  summarily  enforced,  and  that 
it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  captain  or  chief  of  patrol  to  see  that  the  afore- 
said ordinances  are  promptly  executed."  While  the  town  ordinances  pro- 
vide that  a  negro  who  does  not  find  an  employer  shall  be  compelled  to  leave 
the  town,  the  parish  or  county  ordinance  knows  nothing  of  letting  the  negro 
go,  but  simply  compels  him  to  find  an  employer.  Finally,  it  is  ordained 
"  that  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  every  citizen  to  act  as  a. police  officer  for  the 
detection  of  offences  and  the  apprehension  of  offenders,  who  shall  be  imme- 
diately handed  over  to  the  proper  captain  or  chief  of  patrol  " 

On  the  whole,  this  piece  of  legislation  is  a  striking  embodiment  of  the 
idea  that  although  the  former  owner  has  lost  his  individual  right  of  pro- 
perty in  the  former  slave,  "  the  blacks  at  large  belong  to  the  whites  at 
large." 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  as  soon  as  these  proceedings  came  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  and  the  department  commander  they  were 
promptly  overruled.  But  Governor  Wellsv  did  not  remove  the  police  boards 
that  had  thus  attempted  to  revive  slavery  in  a  new  form. 

Here  and  there  municipal  regulations  were  gotten  up  heavily  taxing  or 
otherwise  impeding  those  trades  and  employments  in  which  colored  people 
are  most  likely  to  engage.  Colonel  Thomas  says :  M  You  will  see  by  the 
city  ordinance  that  a  drayman,  or  hackman,  in  Vicksburg,  must  file  a  bond 
of  five  hundred  dollars,  in  addition  to  paying  for  his  license.  The  ma}'or 
requires  that  the  bondsmen  must  be  freeholders.  The  laws  of  this 
State  do  not,  and  never  did,  allow  a  negro  to  own  land  or  hold  property  ; 
the  white  citizens  refuse  to  sign  any  bonds  for  the  freedmen.  The  white 
citizens  and  authorities  saj-  that  it  is  for  their  interest  to  drive  out  all  in- 
dependent negro  labor  ;  that  the  freedmen  must  hire  to  white  men  if  they 
want  to  do  this  kind  of  work." 


13 


Education  of  the  Freedmen. 

I  made  it  a  special  point  in  most  of  the  conversations  I  had  with  southern 
men  to  inquire  into  their  views  with  regard  to  this  subject.  I  found,  in- 
deed, some  gentlemen  of  thought  and  liberal  ideas  who  readily  acknowl- 
edged the  necessity  of  providing  for  the  education  of  the  colored  people, 
and  who  declared  themselves  willing  to  co-operate  to  that  end  to  the  ex- 
tent of  their  influence.  Some  planters  thought  of  establishing  schools  on 
their  estates,  and  others  would  have  been  glad  to  see  measures  taken  to 
that  effect  by  the  people  of  the  neighborhoods  in  which  they  lived.  But  , 
whenever  I  asked  the  question  whether  it  might  be  hoped  that  the  legisla- 
tures of  their  States  or  their  county  authorities  would  make  provisions  for 
negro  education,  I  never  received  an  affirmative,  and  only  in  two  or  three 
instances  feebly  encouraging  answers.  At  last  I  was  forced  to  the  con- 
clusion that,  aside  from  a  small  number  of  honorable  exceptions,  the  popu- 
lar prejudice  is  almost  as  bitterly  set  against  the  negroes  having  the  ad- 
vantage of  education  as  it  was  when  the  negro  was  a  slave.  There  maybe 
an  improvement  in  that  respect,  but  it  would  prove  only  how  universal  the 
prejudice  was  in  former  days.  Hundreds  of  times  I  heard  the  old  assertion 
repeated,  that  "  learning  will  spoil  the  negro  for  work,"  and  that  "  negro 
education  will  be  the  ruin  of  the  south." 

The  consequence  of  the  prejudice  prevailing  in  the  southern  States  is 
that  colored  schools  can  be  established  and  carried  on  with  safety  only 
under  the  protection  of  our  military  forces,  and  that  where  the  latter  are 
withdrawn  the  former  have  to  go  with  them.  There  may  be  a  few  locali- 
ties forming  exceptions,  but  their  number  is  certainly  very  small. 

General  Kilby  Smith  referring  to  the  condition  of  things  in  Mobile,  Ala- 
bama, says  :  Threats  were  made  to  destroy  all  school-houses  in  which 
colored  children  were  taught,  and  in  two  instances  they  were  fired.  The 
same  threats  were  made  against  all  churches  in  which  colored  people  as- 
sembled to  worship,  and  one  of  them  burned.  Continued  threats  of  assas- 
sination were  made  against  the  colored  preachers,  and  one  of  them  is  now 
under  special  guard  by  order  of  Major  General  Woods." 

While  I  was  in  Louisiana  General  Canby  received  a  petition,  signed  by 
a  number  of  prominent  citizens  of  Xew  Orleans,  praying  him  "to  annul 
Order  No.  38,  which  authorizes  a  board  of  officers  to  levy  a  tax  on  the 
tax-payers  of  the  parish  of  Xe»w  Orleans  to  defray  the  expenses  of  educat- 
ing the  freedmen."  The  reasons  given  for  making  this  request  are  as  fol- 
lows :  "Most  of  those  who  have  lost  their  slaves  by  the  rebellion,  and 
whose  lands  are  in  the  course  of  confiscation,  being  thus  deprived  of  the 
means  of  raising  corn  for  their  hungry  children,  have  not  airything  left 
wherewith  to  pay  such  a  tax.  The  order  in  question,  they  consider,  vio- 
lates that  sacred  principle  which  requires  taxation  to  be  equal  throughout 
the  United  States.  If  the  freedmen  are  to  be  educated  at  public  expense, 
let  it  be  done  from  the  treasury  of  the  United  States."  Many  of  the  signers 
of  this  petition,  who  wanted  to  be  relieved  of  the  school  tax  on  the  ground 
of  poverty,  were  counted  among  the  wealthy  men  of  Xew  Orleans,  and  they 
forgot  to  state  that  the  free  colored  element  of  Louisiana,  which  represents 
a  capital  of  at  least  thirteen  millions  and  pays  a  not  inconsiderable  propor- 
tion of  the  taxes,  contributes  at  the  same  time  for  the  support  of  the  schools 
for  whites,  from  which  their  children  are  excluded. 

The  Freedmen. 

That  there  are  among  the  negroes  a  good  many  constitutionally  lazy 
individuals  is  certainly  true.    The  propensity  to  idleness  seems  to  be  rather 


14 


ptrongly  developed  in  the  south  generall}',  without  being  confined  to  any 
particular  race.  It  is  also  true  that  the  alacrit}*  negroes  put  into  their 
work  depends  in  a  majority  of  cases  upon  certain  combinations  of  circum- 
stances. It  is  asserted  that  the  negroes  have  a  prejudice  against  working 
in  the  cultivation  of  cotton,  rice  and  sugar.  Although  this  prejudice,  pro- 
bably arising  from  the  fact  that  cotton,  rice,  and  sugar  fields  remind  the 
former  slave  of  the  worst  experiences  of  his  past  life,  exists  to  some  ex- 
tent, it  has  not  made  the  freedmen  now  on  the  plantations  unwilling  to  cul- 
tivate such  crops  as  the  planters  may  have  seen  fit  to  raise.  A  few  cases 
of  refusal  may  have  occurred.  But  there  is  another  fact  of  which  I  have 
become  satisfied  in  the  course  of  ru}r  observations,  and  which  is  of  great 
significance  ;  while  most  of  the  old  slaveholders  complain  of  the  laziness 
and  instability  of  their  negro  laborers,  the  northern  men  engaged  in  plant- 
ing, with  whom  I  have  come  into  contact,  almost  uniformly  speak  of  the 
negro  laborers  with  satisfaction,  and  these  northern  men  almost  exclusively 
devote  themselves  to  the  cultivation  of  cotton.  A  good  many  southern 
planters  in  view  of  the  fact,  expressed  to  me  their  intention  to  ^ngage 
northern  men  for  the  management  of  their  plantations.  This  circumstance 
would  seem  to  prove  that  under  certain  conditions  the  negro  may  be  ex- 
pected to  work  well.  There  are  two  reasons  by  which  it  may  be  explained  ; 
first,  that  a  northern  man  knows  from  actual  experience  what  free  labor  is, 
and  understands  its  management,  which  the  late  slaveholder,  still  clinging 
to  the  traditions  of  the  old  system,  does  not ;  and  then,  that  the  negro  has 
more  confidence  in  a  northern  man  than  his  former  master.  When  a  north- 
ern man  discovers  among  his  laboring  force  an  individual  that  does  not  do 
his  duty,  his  first  impulse  is  to  discharge  him,  and  he  acts  accordingly. 
When  a  late  slaveholder  discovers  such  an  individual  among  his  laborers, 
his  first  impulse  is  to  whip  him,  and  he  is  very  apt  to  suit  the  act  to  the 
impulse. 

Northern  men  engaged  in  planting  almost  uniformly  pay  wages  in  mo- 
ney, while  southern  planters,  almost  uniformly,  have  contracted  with  their 
laborers  for  a  share  in  the  crop.  In  many  instances  the  shares  are  allotted 
between  employers  and  laborers  with  great  fairness;  but  in  others  the 
share  promised  to  the  laborers  is  so  small  as  to  leave  them  in  the  end  very 
little  or  nothing.  I  have  heard  a  good  many  freedmen  complain  that,  tak- 
ing all  things  into  consideration,  they  really  did  not  know  what  they  were 
working  for  except  food,  which  in  many  instances  was  bad  and  scanty  ;  and 
such  complaints  were  frequently  well  founded. 

Man}*  cases  of  negroes  engaged  in  little  industrial  pursuits  came  to  my 
notice,  in  which  they  showed  considerable  aptness  not  only  for  gaining 
money,  but  also  for  saving  and  judiciously  employing  it.  Some  were  even 
surprisingl}-  successful.  I  visited  some  of  the  plantations  divided  up  among 
freedmen  and  cultivated  by  them  independent^  without  the  supervision  of 
white  men.  In  some  instances  I  found  very  good  crops  and  indications  of 
general  thrift  and  good  management;  m  others  the  corn  and  cotton  crops 
were  in  a  neglected  and  unpromising  state.  The  excuse  made  was  in  most 
cases  that  they  had  obtained  possession  of  the  ground  too  late  in  the  season, 
and  that,  until  the  regular  crops  could  be  harvested,  they  were  obliged  to 
devote  much  of  their  time  to  the  raising  and  sale  of  vegetables,  watermelons, 
&C,  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  living  in  the  mean  time. 

On  the  whole  I  feel  warranted  in  making  the  following  statement:  Many 
freedmen — not  single  individuals,  but  whole  ''plantation  gangs" — are  work- 
ing well;  others  do  not.  The  difference  in  their  efficiency  coincides  in  a 
great  measure  with  a  certain  difference  in  the  conditions  under  which  they 
live.    The  conclusion  lies  near,  that  if  the  conditions  under  which  they 


15 


work  well  become  general,  their  efficiency  as  free  laborers  will  become 
general  also,  aside  from  individual  exceptions.  Certain  it  is,  that  by  far 
the  larger  portion  of  the  work  done  in  the  south  is  done  by  freedmen. 

Vagrancy. — Large  numbers  of  colored  people  left  the  plantations  as  soon 
as  they  became  aware  that  they  could  do  so  with  impunity.  That  they  could 
so  leave  their  former  masters  was  for  them  the  first  test  of  the  reality  of 
their  freedom.  A  great  many  flocked  to  the  military  posts  and  towns  to 
obtain  from  the  "Yankees"  reliable  information  as  to  their  new  rights. 
Others  were  afraid  lest  by  staying  on  the  plantations  where  they  had  been 
held  as  slaves  they  might  again  endanger  their  freedom.  Still  others  went 
to-  the  cities,  thinking  that  there  the  sweets  of  liberty  could  best  be  enjoyed. 
In  some  places  they  crowded  together  in  large  numbers,  causing  serious  in- 
convenience. But  a  great  many,  probably  a  very  large  majority,  remained 
on  the  plantations  and  made  contracts  with  their  former  masters.  The 
military  authorities,  and  especially  the  agents  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau, 
succeeded  by  continued  exertions  in  returning  most  of  those  who  were  adrift 
to  the  plantations,  or  in  finding  other  employment  for  them.  After  the  first 
rush  was  over  the  number  of  vagrants  grew  visibly  less.  It  may  be  said 
that  where  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  is  best  organized  there  is  least  vagrancy 
among  the  nergoes.  Here  and  there  they  show  considerable  restlessness, 
partly  owing  to  local,  partly  to  general  causes.  Among  the  former,  bad 
treatment  is  probably  the  most  prominent  ;  among  the  latter,  a  feeling  of 
distrust,  uneasiness,  anxiety  about  their  future,  which  arises  from  their  pres- 
ent unsettled  condition.  It  is  true,  some  are  going  from  place  to  place  because 
they  are  fond  of  it.  The  statistics  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  show  that  the 
whole  number  of  colored  people  supported  Ivy  the  Government  since  the  close 
of  the  war  was  remarkably  small  and  continually  decreasing. 

Contracts. — Freedmen  frequently  show  great  disinclination  to  make  con- 
tracts with  their  former  masters.  They  are  afraid  lest  in  signing  a  paper  they 
sign  away  their  freedom,  and  in  this  respect  they  are  distrustful  of  most 
southern  men.  It  generally  requires  pei  sonal  assurance  from  a  United  States 
officer  to  make  them  feel  safe.  But  the  advice  of  such  an  officer  is  almost  uni- 
formly followed.  In  this  manner  an  immense  number  of  contracts  has  been 
made,  and  it  is  daily  increasing.  A  northern  man  has  no  difficulty  in  making 
contracts,  and  but  little  in  enforcing  them.  The  complaints  of  southern  men 
that  the  contracts  are  not  well  observed  by  the  freedmen  are  in  many  in- 
stances well  founded.  The  same  can  be  said  of  the  complaints  of  freedmen 
with  regard  to  the  planters.  The  negro,  fresh  from  slavery,  has  naturally 
but  a  crude  idea  of  the  binding  force  of  a  written  agreement,  and  it  is  gallinsr 
to  many  of  the  planters  to  stand  in  such  relations  as  a  contract  establishes 
to  those  who  formerly  were  there  slaves.  I  was,  however,  informed  by  offi- 
cers of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  and  by  planters  also,  that  things  were  im- 
proving in  that  respect.  Contracts  will  be  more  readily  entered  into  and 
more  strictly  kept  as  soon  as  the  intimate  relations  between  labor  and  com- 
pensation are  better  understood  and  appreciated  on  both  sides. 

Insolence  and  insubordination. — The  new  spirit  which  emancipation  has 
awakened  in  the  colored  people  has  undoubtedly  developed  itself  in  some  in- 
dividuals, especially  jroung  men,  to  an  offensive  degree.  Hence  cases  of  in- 
solence on  the  part  of  freedmen  occur.  But  such  occurrences  are  compara- 
tively rare.  On  the  whole,  the  conduct  of  the  colored  people  is  far  more 
submissive  than  anybod}7  had  a  right  to  expect.  The  acts  of  violence  per- 
petrated by  freedmen  against  white  persons  do  not  stand  in  any  proportion 
to  those  committed  by  whites  against  negroes.  Every  such  occurrence  is  sure 
to  be  noticed  in  the  southern  papers,  and  we  have  heard  of  but  very  few. 

When  southern  people  speak  of  the  insolence  of  the  negro,  they  generally 


16 


mean  something  which  persons  who  never  lived  under  th$  system  of  slavery- 
arc  not  apt  to  appreciate.  It  is  but  very  rarely  what  would  be  calkd  inso- 
lence among  equals.  But,  as  an  old  planter  said  to  me,  "  our  people  cannot 
realize  yet  that  the  negro  is  free."  A  negro  is  called  insolent  whenever 
his  conduct  varies  in  any  manner  from  what  a  southern  man  was  accus- 
tomed to  when  slavery  existed. 

Extravagant  notions. — In  many  localities  I  found  an  impression  prevail- 
ing among  the  negroes  that  some  great  change  was  going  to  take  place 
about  Christmas.    Feeling  uneasy  in  their  present  condition,  they  in 
dulged  in  the  expectation  that  government  intended  to  make  some  further 
provision  for  their  future  welfare,  especially  by  ordering  distributions  of 
land  among  them. 

Impressions  like  the  above  are  very  apt  to  spread  among  the  negroes,  for 
the  reason  that  they  ardently  desire  to  become  freeholders.  In  the  inde- 
pendent possession  of  landed  property  they  see  the  consummation  of  their 
deliverance.  However  mistaken  their  notions  may  be  in.  other  respects,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  this  instinct  is  correct. 

The  negro  is  constitutionally  docile  and  eminently  good-natured.  In- 
stances of  the  most  touching  attachment  of  freedmen  to  their  old  masters 
and  mistresses  have  come  to  my  notice.  To  a  white  man  whom  they  be- 
lieve to  be  sincerely  their  friend  they  cling  with  greater  affection  even  than 
to  one  of  their  own  race.  By  some  northern  speculators  their  confidence 
has  been  sadly  abused.  Nevertheless,  the  trust  they  place  in  persons  coming 
from  the  north,  or  in  any  way  connected  with  the  Government,  is  most  child- 
like and  unbounded.  There  may  be  individual  exceptions,  but  I  am  sure 
they  are  not  numerous.  Those  who  enjoy  their  confidence  also  enjoy  their 
affection.  Centuries  of  slavery  have  not  been  sufficient  to  make  them  the 
enemies  of  the  white  race.  If  in  the  future  a  feeling  of  mutual  hostility 
should  develop  itself  between  the  races,  it  will  probably  not  be  the  fault 
of  those  who  have  shown  such  an  inexhaustible  patience  under  the  most 
adverse  and  trying  circumstances. 

Education. — That  the  negroes  should  have  come  out  of  slavery  as  an  igno- 
rant class  is  not  surprising  when  we  consider  that  it  was  a  penal  offence  to 
teach  them  while  they  were  in  slavery;  but  their  eager  desire  to  learn,  and 
alacrity  and  success  with  which  they  avail  themselves  of  every  facility  offered 
to  them  in  that  respect,  has  become  a  matter  of  notoriety.  The  statistics 
of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  show  to  what  extent  such  facilities  have  been 
offered  and  what  results  have  been  attained.  As  far  as  my  information 
goes,  these  results  are  most  encouraging  for  the  future. 

Prospective — the  Reactionary  Tendency. 

I  have  stated  above  that,  in  my  opinion,  the  solution  of  the  social  problem 
in  the  south  did  not  depend  upon  the  capacity  and  conduct  of  the  negro 
alone,  but  in  the  same  measure  upon  the  ideas  and  feelings  entertained  and 
acted  upon  by  the  whites.  What  their  ideas  and  feelings  were  while  under 
my  observation,  and  how  they  affected  the  contact  of  the  two  races,  I  have 
already  set  forth.  The  question  arises,  what  policy  will  be  adopted  by  the 
"  ruling  class"  when  all  restraint  imposed  upon  them  by  the  militaiy  power 
of  the  national  government  is  withdrawn,  and  they  are  left  free  to  regulate 
matters  according  to  their  own  tastes  ?  It  would  be  presumptuous  to  speak 
of  the  future  with  absolute  certainty  ;  but  it  may  safely  be  assumed  that  the 
same  causes  will  always  tend  to  produce  the  same  effects.  As  long  as  a 
majority  of  the  southern  people  believe  that  "  the  negro  will  not  work  with- 
out physical  compulsion,"  and  that  "the  blacks  at  large  belong  to  the  whites 
at  large,"  that  belief  will  tend  to  produce  a  system  of  coercion,  the  enforce- 


17 


ment  of  which  will  be  aided  by  the  hostile  feeling  against  the  negro  now 
prevailing  among  the  whites,  and  by  the  general  spirit  of  violence  which 
in  the  south  was  fostered  by  the  influence  slavery  exercised  upon  the  popu- 
lar character.  It  is,  indeed,  not  probable  that  a  general  attempt  will  be 
made  to  restore  slavery  in  its  old  form,  on  account  of  the  barriers  which 
such  an  attempt  would  find  in  its  way ;  but  there  are  systems  intermediate 
between  slavery  as  it  formerly  existed  in  the  south,  and  free  labor  as  it 
exists  in  the  north,  but  more  nearly  related  to  the  former  than  to  the  latter, 
the  introduction  of  which  will  be  attempted.  I  have  noticed  some  movements 
in  that  direction,  which  were  made  under  the  very  eyes  of  our  military 
authorities,  and  of  which  the  Opelousas  and  St.  Landry  ordinances  were 
the  most  significant.  Other  things  of  more  recent  date,  such  as  the  new 
negro  code  submitted  by  a  committee  to  the  Legislature  of  South  Carolina, 
are  before  the  country.  They  have  all  the  same  tendency,  because  they 
all  spring  from  the  same  cause. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  convention  of  Mississippi — and  the  conven- 
tions of  other  States  have  followed  its  example — imposed  upon  subsequent 
legislatures  the  obligation  not  only  to  pass  laws  for  the  protection  of  the 
freedmen  in  person  and  property,  but  also  to  guard  against  the  dangers  arising 
from  sudden  emancipation.  This  language  is  not  without  its  significance;  not 
the  blessings  of  a  full  development  of  free  labor,  but  only  the  dangers  of 
emancipation  are  spoken  of.  It  will  be  observed  that  this  clause  is  so  vaguely 
worded  as  to  authorize  the  legislatures  to  place  any  restriction  they  may  see 
fit  upon  the  emancipated  negro,  in  perfect  consistency  with  the  amended  State 
constitutions ;  for  it  rests  with  them  to  define  what  the  dangers  of  sudden 
emancipation  consist  in,  and  what  measures  may  be  required  to  guard 
against  them. 

A  mors  tangible  evidence  of  good  intentions  would  seem  to  have  been  fur- 
nished by  the  admission  of  negro  testimony  in  the  courts  of  justice,  which  has 
been  conceded  in  some  of  the  southern  States,  at  least  in  point  of  form.  This 
being  a  matter  of  vital  interest  to  the  colored  man,  I  inquired  into  the  feel- 
ings of  people  concerning  it  with  particular  care.  At  first  I  found  hardly 
any  southern  man  that  favored  it.  Even  persons  of  some  liberality  of  mind 
saw  seemingly  insurmountable  objections.  The  appearance  of  a  general  order 
issued  by  General  Swayne  in  Alabama,  which  made  it  optional  for  the  civil 
authorities  either  to  admit  negro  testimony  in  the  State  courts  or  to  have 
all  cases  in  which  colored  people  were  concerned  tried  by  officers  of  the 
bureau  or  military  commissions,  seemed  to  be  the  signal  for  a  change  of 
position  on  the  part  of  the  politicians.  A  great  many  of  them,  seeing  a 
chance  of  getting  rid  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  dropped 
their  opposition  somewhat  suddenly  and  endeavored  to  make  the  admission 
of  negro  testimony  in  the  Stats  courts  palatable  to  the  masses  by  assuring 
them  that  at  all  events  it  would  rest  with  the  judges  and  juries  to  determine 
in  each  case  before  them  whether  the  testimony  of  negro  witnesses  was 
worth  anything  or  not. 

It  is  probable  that  the  laws  excluding  negro  testimony  from  the  courts  will 
be  repealed  in  all  the  States  lately  in  rebellion  if  it  is  believed  that  a  satisfac- 
tory arrangement  of  this  matter  may  in  any  way  facilitate  the  "  readmission" 
of  the  States,  but  I  apprehend  such  arrangements  will  hardly  be  sufficient  to 
secure  to  the  colored  man  impartial  justice  as  long  as  the  feelings  of  the  whites 
are  against  him  and  they  think  that  his  rights  are  less  entitled  to  respect 
than  their  own.  More  potent  certainly  than  the  laws  of  a  country  are  the 
opinions  of  right  and  wrong  entertained  by  its  people.  When  the  spirit  of  a 
law  is  in  conflict  with  such  opinions,,  there  is  but  little  prospect  of  its  being 


18 


faithfully  put  in  execution,  especially  where  those  who  hold  such  opinions  are 
the  same  who  have  to  administer  the  laws. 

The  Militia. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  southern  people  intend  to  retrace  the  steps 
they  have  made  as  soon  as  they  have  resumed  control  of  their  State  affairs. 
Although  they  regret  the  abolition  of  slavery,  they  certainly  do  not  intend  to 
re-establish  it  in  its  old  form.  Although  they  are  at  heart  opposed  to  the  ad- 
mission of  negro  testimony  in  the  courts  of  justice,  they  probably  will  not  re- 
enact  the  laws  excluding  it.  But  while  accepting  the  "abolition  of  slavery," 
they  think  that  some  species  of  serfdom,  peonage,  or  some  other  form  of  com- 
pulsory labor  is  not  slaveiy,  and  may  be  introduced  without  a  violation  of 
their  pledge.  Although  formally  admitting  negro  testimony,  they  think  that 
negro  testimony  will  be  taken  practically  for  what  they  themselves  consider  it 
"worth. "  What  particular  shape  the  reactionary  movement  will  assume  it  is 
at  present  unnecessary  to  inquire.  There  are  a  hundred  wa}rs  of  framing  ap- 
prenticeship,  vagrancy,  or  contract  laws,  which  will  serve  the  purpose.  Even 
the  mere  reorganization  of  the  militia  upon  the  old  footing  will  go  far  towards 
accomplishing  the  object.  To  this  point  I  beg  leave  to  invite  your  special 
attention. 

The  people  of  the  southern  States  show  great  anxiety  to  have  their  militia 
reorganized,  and  in  some  instances  permission  has  been  given.  In  the  case  of 
Mississippi  I  gave  you  my  reasons  for  opposing  the  measure  under  existing 
circumstances.  They  were,  first,  that  county  patrols  had  already  been  in  exist- 
ence, and  had  to  be  disbanded  on  account  of  their  open  hostilhyto  Union  peo- 
ple and  freedmen.  Second,  that  the  governor  proposed  to  arm  the  people 
upon  the  ground  that  the  inhabitants  refused  to  assist  the  military  authorities 
in  the  suppression  of  crime,  and  that  the  call  was  addressed,  not  to  the  loyal 
citizens  of  the  United  States,  but  expressly  to  the  "  young  men  who  had  so 
distinguished  themselves  for  gallantly"  in  the  rebel  service.  And  third, 
because  the  State  was  still  under  martial  law,  and  the  existence  of  organized 
and  armed  bodies  not  under  the  control  of  the  military  commander  was 
inconsistent  with  that  state  of  things. 

But  there  are  other  more  general  points  of  view  from  which  this  question 
must  be  looked  at  in  order  to  be  appreciated  in  its  most  important  bearings.  I 
may  state,  without  fear  of  contradiction,  that,  in  eveiy  case,  where  permission 

.  was  asked  for  reorganizing  the  militia,  the  privilege  or  duty  of  serving  in  that 
armed  organization  was  intended  to  be  confined  to  the  whites.  In  the  con- 
versations I  had  with  southern  men  about  this  matter,  the  idea  of  admitting 
colored  people  to  the  privilege  of  bearing  arms  as  a  part  of  the  militia  was 
uniformly  treated  by  them  as  a  thing  not  to  be  thought  of.  The  militia,  when- 
ever organized,  will  thus  be  composed  of  men  belonging  to  one  class,  to  the 
total  exclusion  of  another.  This  concentration  of  organized  physical  power 
in  the  hands  of  one  class  will  necessarily  tend,  and  is  undoubtedly  designed, 
to  give  that  class  absolute  physical  control  of  the  other.  The  specific  purpose 
for  which  the  militia  is  to  be  reorganized  appears  clearly  from  the  uses  it  was 
put  to  whenever  a  local  organization  was  effected.  It  is  the  restoration  of  the 
old  patrol  S3*stem  which  was  one  of  the  characteristic  features  of  the  regime 
of  slaver}- .  The  services  which  such  patrols  are  expected  to  perform  con- 
sist in  maintaining  what  southern  people  understand  to  be  the  order  of 
society.  Indications  are  given  in  several  of  the  accompanying  documents. 
Among  others,  the  St.  Laudry  and  Bossier  ordinances  define  with  some 
precision  what  the  authority  and  duties  of  the  "  chief  patrols"  are  to  be. 

.  The  militia,  organized  for  the  distinct  purpose  of  enforcing  the  authority 
of  the  whites  over  the  blacks,  is  in  itself  practically  sufficient  to  establish 


19 


and  enforce  a  system  of  compulsory  labor  without  there  being  any  explicit 
laws  for  it ;  and,  being  sustained  and  encouraged  by  public  opinion,  the 
chief  and  members  of  "  count}"  patrols''  are  not  likely  to  be  over-nice  in  the 
construction  of  their  orders.  This  not  a  mere  supposition,  but  an  opinion 
based  upon  experience  already  gathered.  As  I  stated  above,  the  reorgani- 
zation of  the  county  patrol  system  upon  the  basis  here  described  will  result 
in  the  establishment  of  a  sort  of  permanent  martial  law  over  the  negro. 

It  is,  therefore,  not  even  necessary  that  the  reaction  against  that  result 
of  the  war.  which  consists  in  emancipation,  should  manifest  itself  by  very 
obnoxious  legislative  enactments,  just  as  in  some  of  the  slave  States  slavery 
did  not  exist  by  virtue  of  the  State  constitution.  It  may  be  practically 
accomplished,  and  is,  in  fact,  practically  accomplished  whenever  the  freed 
man  is  not  protected  by  the  federal  authorities,  without  displaying  its 
character  and  aims  upon  the  statute  book. 

Negro  Insurrections  and  Anarchy. 

That  in  times  like  ours,  and  in  a  country  like  this,  a  reaction  in  favor  of 
compulsory  labor  cannot  be  ultimately  successful,  is  as  certain  as  it  was 
that  slavery  could  not  last  forever.  But  a  movement  in  that  direction  can 
prevent  much  good  that  might  be  accomplished,  and  produce  ni'uch  evil  that 
might  be  avoided.  Not  only  will  such  a  movement  seriously  interfere  with 
all  efforts  to  organize  an  efficient  system  of  free  labor,  and  thus  very  ma- 
terially retard  the  return  of  prosperity  in  the  south,  but  it  ma}'  bring  on  a 
crisis  as  dangerous  and  destructive  as  the  war  of  the  rebellion  itself. 

I  stated  above  that  I  did  not  deem  a  negro  insurrection  probable  as  long 
as  the  freedmen  were  assured  of  the  direct  protection  of  the  national  gov- 
ernment. Whenever  they  are  in  trouble,  they  raise  their  eyes  up  to  that 
power,  and  although  they  may  suffer,  yet,  as  long  as  that  power  is  visibly 
present,  they  continue  to  hope.  But  when  State  authority  in  the  south  is 
fully  restored,  the  federal  forces  withdrawn,  and  the  Freedruems  Bureau 
abolished,  the  colored  man  will  find  himself  turned  over  to  the  mercies  of 
those  whom  he  does  not  trust.  If  then  an  attempt  is  made  to  strip  him 
again  of  those  rights  which  he  justly  thought  he  possessed,  he  will  be  apt 
to  feel  that  he  can  hope  for  no  redress  unless  he  procure  it  himself.  If  ever 
the  negro  is  capable  of  rising,  he  will  rise  then.  Men  who  never  struck  a 
blow  for  the  purpose  of  gaining  their  liberty,  when  they  were  slaves,  are  apt 
to  strike  when,  their  liberty  once  gained,  they  see  it  again  in  danger.  How- 
ever great  the  patience  and  submissiveness  of  the  colored  race  may  be,  it 
cannot  be  presumed  that  its  active  participation  in  a  war  against  the  very 
men  with  whom  it  again  stands  face  to  face,  has  remained  entirely  without 
influence  upon  its  spirit. 

What  a  general  insurrection  of  the  negroes  would  result  in,  whether  it 
would  be  easy  or  difficult  to  suppress  it,  whether  the  struggle  would  be  long 
or  short,  what  race  would  suffer  most,  are  questions  which  will  not  be  asked 
by  those  who  understand  the  problem  to  be,  not  how  to  suppress  a  negro 
insurrection,  but  how  to  prevent  it.  Certain  it  is,  it  would  inflict  terrible 
calamities  upon  both  whites  and  blacks,  and  present  to  the  world  the  spectacle 
of  atrocities  which  ought  to  be  foreign  to  civilized  nations.  The  negro,  in  his 
ordinary  state,  is  docile  and  good-natured ;  but  when  once  engaged  in  a  bloody 
business,  it  is  difficult  to  say  how  far  his  hot  impulses  would  carry  him ;  and  as 
to  the  southern  whites,  the  barbarous  scenes  the  country  has  witnessed  since 
the  close  of  the  rebellion,  indicate  the  temper  with  which  they  wTould  fight  the 
negro  as  an  insurgent.  It  would  be  a  war  of  extermination,  revolting  in  its 
incidents,  and  with  ruin  and  desolation  in  its  train.    There  may  be  different 


20 


moans  by  which  it  can  be  prevented,  but  there  is  only  one  certain  effect :  it  is, 
that  the  provocations  be  avoided  which  may  call  it  forth. 

But  even  if  it  be  prevented  by  other  means,  it  is  not  the  only  danger  which 
a  reactionary  movement  will  bring  upon  the  South.  Nothing  renders  society 
more  restless  than  a  social  revolution  but  half  accomplished.  It  naturally 
tends  to  develop  its  logical  consequences,  but  is  hindered  by  adverse  agencies 
which  work  in  another  direction  ;  nor  can  it  return  to  the  point  from  which  it 
started.  There  are,  then,  continual  vibrations  and  fluctuations  between  two 
opposites  which  keep  society  in  the  nervous  uneasiness  and  excitement  grow- 
ing from  the  lingering  strife  between  the  antagonistic  tendencies.  All  classes 
of  society  are  intensely  dissatisfied  with  things  as  they  are.  General  explo- 
sions may  be  prevented,  but  they  are  always  imminent.  This  state  of  uncer- 
tainty impedes  all  successful  wrorking  of  the  social  forces  ;  people,  instead  of 
devoting  themselves  with  confidence  and  steadiness  to  solid  pursuits,  are  apt 
to  live  from  hand  to  mouth,  or  to  indulge  in  fitful  experiments  ;  capital  ven- 
tures out  but  with  great  timidity ;  the  lawless  elements  of  the  community  take 
advantage  of  the  general  confusion  and  dissatisfaction,  and  society  drifts 
into  anarchy.  There  is  probably  at  the  present  moment  no  country  in  the 
civilized  world  wThich  contains  such  an  accumulation  of  anarchical  elements 
as  the  South.  The  strife  of  the  antagonistic  tendencies  here  described  is 
aggravated  by  the  passions  inflamed  and  the  general  impoverishment  brought 
about  by  a  long  and  exhaustive  war,  and  the  South  will  have  to  suffer  the 
evils  of  anarchical  disorder  until  means  are  found  to  effect  a  final  settlement 
of  the  labor  question  in  accordance  with  the  logic  of  the  great  revolution. 

Difficulties  and  Remedies. 

The  true  nature  of  the  difficulties  of  the  situation  is  this  :  The  general  gov- 
ernment of  the  republic  has,  by  proelaiming  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves, 
commenced  a  great  social  revolution  in  the  South,  but  has,  as  yet,  not  com- 
pleted it.  Only  the  negative  part  of  it  is  accomplished.  The  slaves  are  eman- 
cipated in  point  of  form,  but  free  labor  has  not  yet  been  put  in  the  place  of 
slavery  in  point  of  fact.  And  now,  in  the  midst  of  this  critical  period  of 
transition,  the  power  which  originated  the  revolution  is  expected  to  turn 
over  its  whole  future  development  to  another  power  which  from  the  begin- 
ning was  hostile  to  it  and  has  never  yet  entered  into  its  spirit,  leaving  the 
class  in  whose  favor  it  was  made  completely  without  power  to  protect  itself 
and  to  take  an  influential  part  in  that  development.  The  history  of  the 
world  will  be  searched  in  vain  for  a  proceeding  similar  to  this  which  did  not 
lead  either  to  a  rapid  and  violent  reaction,  or  to  the  most  serious  trouble 
and  civil  disorder.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  conduct  of  the  southern 
people  since  the  close  of  the  war  has  exhibited  such  extraordinary  wisdom 
and  self-abnegation  as  to  make  them  an  exception  to  the  rule. 

It  is  certain  that  every  success  of  free  negro  labor  will  augment  the  num- 
ber of  its  friends,  and  disarm  some  of  the  prejudices  and  assumptions  of  its 
opponents.  I  am  convinced  one  good  harvest  made  by  unadulterated  free 
labor  in  the  south  would  have  a  far  better  effect  than  all  the  oaths  that 
have  been  taken,  and  all  the  ordinances  that  have  as^Tet  been  passed  by 
southern  conventions.  But  how  can  such  a  result  be  attained  ?  The  facts 
enumerated  in  this  report,  as  well  as  the  news  we  receive  from  the  south 
from  day  to  day,  must  make  it  evident  to  every  unbiased  observer  that  un- 
adulterated free  labor  cannot  be  had  at  present,  unless  the  national  govern- 
ment holds  its  protective  and  controlling  hand  over  it.  It  appears,  also, 
that  the  more  efficient  this  protection  of  free  labor  against  all  disturbing 
and  reactionary  influences,  the  sooner  may  such  a  satisfactory  result  be 
looked  for.    One  reason  why  the  southern  people  are  so  slow  in  accommo- 


21 


dating  themselves  to  the  new  order  of  things  is,  that  they  confidently  ex- 
pect soon  to  be  permitted  to  regulate  matters  according  to  their  own  no- 
tions. Every  concession  made  to  them  by  the  government  has  been  taken 
as  an  encouragement  to  persevere  in  this  hope,  and,  unfortunately  for  them, 
this  hope  is  nourished  by  influences  from  other  parts  of  the  country.  Hence 
their  anxiety  to  have  their  State  governments  restored  at  once,  to  have  the 
troops  withdrawn,  and  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  abolished,  although  a  good 
many  discerning  men  know  well  that,  in  view  of  the  lawless  spirit  still  pre- 
vailing, it  would  be  far  better  for  them  to  have  the  general  order  of  society 
firmly  maintained  by  the  federal  power  until  things  have  arrived  at  a  final 
settlement.  Had,  from  the  beginning,  the  conviction  been  forced  upon 
them  that  the  adulteration  of  the  new  order  of  things  by  the  admixture  of 
elements  belonging  to  the  system  of  slavery  would  under  no  circumstances 
be  permitted,  a  much  larger  number  would  have  launched  their  energies 
into  the  new  channel,  and,  seeing  that  they  could  do  "  no  better,"  faithfully 
co-operated  with  the  government.  It  is  hope  which  fixes  them  in  their  per- 
verse notions.  That  hope  nourished  or  full}r  gratified,  they  will  persevere 
in  the  same  direction.  That  hope  destroyed,  a  great  many  will,  by  the 
force  of  necessity,  at  once  accommodate  themselves  to  the  logic  of  the 
change.  If,  therefore,  the  national  government  firmly  and  unequivocally 
announces  its  policy  not  to  give  up  the  control  of  the  free-labor  reform  until 
it  is  finally  accomplished,  the  progress  of  that  reform  will  undoubtedly  be 
far  more  rapid  and  far  less  difficult  than  it  will  be  if  the  attitude  of  the 
government  is  such  as  to  permit  contrary  hopes  to  be  indulged  in. 

The  machinery  by  which  the  government  has  so  far  exercised  its  protec- 
tion of  the  negro  and  of  free  labor  inthe.south — the  Freedmen's  Bureau — 
is  very  unpopular  in  that  part  of  the  country,  as  every  institution  placed 
there  as  a  barrier  to  reactionary  aspirations  would  be.  That  abuses  were 
committed  with  the  management  of  freedmen's  affairs  ;  that  some  ef  the  offi- 
cers of  the  bureau  were  men  of  more  enthusiasm  than  discretion,  and  in 
many  cases  went  beyond  their  authority  :  all  this  is  certainly  true.  But, 
while  the  southern  people  are  always  ready  to  expatiate  upon  the  short- 
comings of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  they  are  not  so  ready  to  recognize  the 
services  it  has  rendered.  I  feel  warranted  in  saying  that  not  half  of  the 
labor  that  has  been  done  in  the  south  this  year,  or  will  be  done  there  next 
year,  would  have  been  or  would  be  done  but  for  the  exertions  of  the  Freed- 
men's Bureau. 

A  Chinese  Trait — Immigration  the  Corrective. 

A  temporary  continuation  of  national  control  in  the  southern  States 
would  also  have  a  most  beneficial  effect  as  regards  the  immigration  of  north- 
ern people  and  Europeans  into  that  country :  and  such  immigration  would, 
in  its  turn,  contribute  much  to  the  solution  of  the  labor  problem.  Nothing 
is  more  desirable  for  the  south  than  the  importation  of  new  men  and  new 
r  ideas.  One  of  the  greatest  drawbacks  under  which  the  southern  people  are 
laboring  is,  that  for  fifty  years  they  have  been  in  no  sympathetic  communion 
with  the  progressive  ideas  of  the  times.  While  professing  to  be  in  favor  of 
free  trade,  they  adopted  and  enforced  a  system  of  prohibition,  as  far  as 
those  ideas  were  concerned,  which  was  in  conflict  with  their  cherished  in- 
stitution of  slavery ;  and,  as  almost  all  the  progressive  ideas  of  our  days 
were  in  conflict  with  slavery,  the  prohibition  was  sweeping.  It  had  one 
peculiar  effect,  which  we  also  notice  with  some  Asiatic  nations  which  follow 
a  similar  course.  The  southern  people  honestly  maintained  and  believed, 
not  only  that  as  a  people  they  were  highly  civilized,  but  that  their  civiliza- 
tion was  the  highest  that  could  be  attained,  and  ought  to  serve  as  a  model 


22 


to  other  nations  the  world  over.  The  more  enlightened  individuals  among 
them  felt  sometimes  a  vague  impression  of  the  barrenness  of  Jheir  mental 
life,  and  the  barbarous  peculiarities  of  their  social  organization  ;  but  very 
few  ever  dared  to  investigate  and  to  expose  the  true  cause  of  these  evils. 
Thus  the  people  were  so  wrapt  up  in  self-admiration  as  to  be  inaccessible  to 
the  voice  even  of  the  best-intentioned  criticism.  Hence  the  delusion  they 
indulged  in  as  to  the  absolute  superiority  of  their  race — a  delusion  which, 
in  spite  of  the  severe  test  it  has  lately  undergone,  is  not  yet  given  up  ;  and 
will,  as  every  traveller  in  the  south  can  testify  from. experience,  sometimes 
express  itself  in  singular  manifestations.  This  spirit,  which  for  so  long  a 
time  has  kept  the  southern  people  back  while  the  world  besides  was  moving, 
is  even  at  this  moment  still  standing  as  a  serious  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
progress. 

Nothing  can,  therefore,  be  more  desirable  than  that  the  contact  between 
the  southern  people  and  the  outside  world  should  be  as  strong  and  intimate 
as  possible ;  and  in  no  better  way  can  this  end  be  subserved  than  by  im- 
migration in  mass. 

But  among  the  principal  requisites  for  the  success  of  the  immigrant  are 
personal  security  and  a  settled  condition  of  things.  Personal  security  is 
honestly  promised  by  the  thinking  men  of  the  south  ;  but  another  question 
is,  whether  the  promise  and  good  intentions  of  the  thinking  men  will  be 
sufficient  to  restrain  and  control  the  populace,  whose  animosity  against 
"  Yankee  interlopers"  is  only  second  to  their  hostile  feeling  against  the 
negro. 

The  south  needs  capital.  But  capital  is  notoriously  timid  and  averse 
to  risk  itself,  not  only  where  there  actually  is  trouble,  but  where  there  is 
serious  and  continual  danger  of  trouble. 

How  long  the  national  government  should  continue  that  control  depends 
upon  contingencies.  It  ought  to  cease  as  soon  as  its  objects  are  attained  ; 
and  its  objects  will  be  attained  sooner  and  with  less  difficulty  if  nobody  is 
permitted  to  indulge  in  the  delusion  that  it  will  cease  before  they  are 
attained.  This  is  one  of  the  cases  in  which  a  determined  policy  can 
accomplish  much,  while  a  half-way  policy  is  liable  to  spoil  things  already 
accomplished. 

Xegro  Suffrage. 

It  would  seem  that  the  interference  of  the  national  authority  in  the  home 
concerns  of  the  southern  States  would  be  rendered  less  necessary,  and  the 
whole  problem  of  political  and  social  reconstruction  be  much  simplified,  if, 
while  the  masses  lately  arrayed  against  the  government  are  permitted  to 
vote,  the  large  majority  of  those  who  were  always  loyal,  and  are  naturally 
anxious  to  see  the  free  labor  problem  successfully  solved,  were  not  excluded 
from  all  influence  upon  legislation.  In  all  questions  concerning  the  Union, 
the  national  debt,  and  the  future  social  organization  of  the  south,  the  feel- 
ings of  the  colored  man  are  naturally  in  sympathy  with  the  views  and  aims 
of  the  national  government.  While  the  southern- white  fought  against  the 
Union,  the  negro  did  all  he  could  to  aid  it ;  while  the  southern  white  sees 
in  the  national  government  his  conqueror,  the  negro  sees  in  it  his  protec- 
tor ;  while  the  white  owes  to  the  national  debt  his  defeat,  the  negro  owes 
to  it  his  deliverance ;  while  the  white  considers  himself  robbed  and  ruined 
by  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  the  negro  finds  in  it  the  assurance  of 
future  prosperity  and  happiness.  In  all  the  important  issues  the  negro 
would  be  led  by  natural  impulses  to  forward  the  ends  of  the  government, 
and  by  making  his  influence,  as  part  of  the  voting  body,  tell  upon  the 


23 


legislation  of  the  States,  render  the  interference  of  the  national  authority 
less  necessary. 

As  the  most  difficult  of  the  pending  questions  are  intimately  connected 
with  the  status  of  the  negro  in  southern  society,  it  is  obvious  that  a  cor- 
rect solution  can  be  more  easily  obtained  if  he  has  a  voice  in  the  matter. 
In  the  right  to  vote  he  would  find  the  best  permanent  protection  against 
oppressive  class-legislation,  as  well  as  against  individual  persecution. 
The  relations  between  the  white  and  black  races,  even  if  improved  by  the 
gradual  wearing  off  of  the  present  animosities,  are  likely  to  remain  long 
under  the  troubling  influence  of  prejudice.  It  is  a  notorious  fact  that  the  I 
rights  of  a  man  of  some  political  power  are  far  less  exposed  to  violation 
than  those  of  one  who  is,  in  matters  of  public  interest,  completely  subject 
to  the  will  of  others.  A  voter  is  a  man  of  influence ;  small  as  that  influence 
may  be  in  the  single  individual;  it  becomes  larger  when  that  individual 
belongs  to  a  numerous  class  of  voters  who  are  ready  to  make  common 
cause  with  him  for  the  protection  of  his  rights.  Such  an  individual  is  an 
object  of  interest  to  the  political  parties  that  desire  to  have  the  benefit  of 
his  ballot.  It  is  true,  the  bringing  face  to  face  at  the  ballot-box  of  the 
white  and  black  races  may  here  and  there  lead  to  an  outbreak  of  feeling, 
and  the  first  trials  ought  certainly  to  be  made  while  the  national  power  is 
still  there  to  prevent  or  repress  disturbances  ;  but  the  practice  once  success- 
fully inaugurated  under  the  protection  of  that  power,  it  would  probably 
be  more  apt  than  anything  else  to  obliterate  old  antagonisms,  especially  if 
the  colored  people — which  is  probable,  as  soon  as  their  own  rights  are  suffi- 
ciently secured — divide  their  votes  between  the  different  political  parties. 

But  it  is  idle  to  say  that  it  will  be  time  to  speak  of  negro  suffrage  when 
the  whole  colored  race  will  be  educated,  for  the  ballot  may  be  necessary  to 
him  to  secure  his  education. 

Aside  from  a  very  few  enlightened  men,  I  found  but  one  class  of  people 
in  favor  of  the  enfranchisement  of  the  blacks ;  it  was  the  class  of  the 
Unionists  who  found  themselves  politically  ostracised  and  looked  upon 
the  enfranchisement  of  the  lo}^al  negroes  as  the  salvation  of  the  whole  loyal 
element.  But  their  numbers  and  influence  are  sadly  insufficient  to  secure 
such  a  result.  The  masses  are  strongly  opposed  to  colored  suffrage  ;  any 
body  that  dares  to  advocate  it  is  stigmatized  as  a  dangerous  fanatic ;  nor 
do  I  deem  it  probable  that  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things  prejudices  will 
wear  off  to  such  an  extent  as  to  make  it  a  popular  measure. 

The  only  manner  in  which,  in  my  opinion,  the  southern  people  can  be 
induced  to  grant  to  the  freedmen  some  measure  of  self-protecting  power  in 
the  form  of  suffrage,  is  to  make  it  a  condition  precedent  to  "readniission." 

Deportation  op  the  Freedmen. 

I  have  to  notice  one  pretended  remedy  for  the  disorders  now  agitating 
the  south,  which  seems  to  have  become  the  favorite  plan  of  some  promi- 
nent public  men.  It  is  that  the  whcle  colored  population  of  the  south  should 
be  transported  to  some  place  where  the}7  could  live  completely  separated 
from  the  whites.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  discuss,  not  only  the  question 
of  right  and  justice,  but  the  difficulties  and  expense  necessarily  attending 
the  deportation  of  nearly  four  millions  of  people.  But  it  may  be  asked, 
what  would  become  of  the  industry  of  the  south  for  many  years,  if  the 
bulk  of  its  laboring  population  were  taken  away  ?  The  south  stands  in 
need  of  an  increase  and  .not  of  a  diminution  of  its  laboring  force  to  repair 
the  losses  and  disasters  of  the  last  four  years.  Much  is  said  of  importing 
European  laborers  and  northern  men ;  this  is  the  favorite  idea  of  many 
planters  who  want  such  immigrants  to  work  on  their  plantations.  But 


24 


they  forget  that  European  and  northern  men  will  not  come  to  the  south  to 
serve  as  hired  hands  on  the  plantations,  but  to  acquire  property  for  them- 
selves, and  that  even  if  the  whole  European  immigration  at  the  rate  of 
200,000  a  year  were  turned  into  the  south,  leaving  not  a  single  man  for  the 
north  and  west,  it  would  require  between  fifteen  and  twenty  years  to  fill 
the  vacuum  caused  by  the  deportation  of  the  freedmen. 

It  is,  however,  a  question  worthy  of  consideration  whether  it  would  not 
be  wise  to  offer  attractive  inducements  and  facilities  for  the  voluntary  mi- 
gration of  freedmen  to  some  suitable  district  on  the  line  of  the  Pacific 
railroad.  It  would  answer  a  double  object:  1.  It  would  aid  in  the  con- 
struction of  that  road  ;  and  2.  If  this  migration  be  effected  on  a  large  scale 
it  would  cause  a  drain  upon  the  laboring  force  of  the  South  ;  it  would  make 
the  people  affected  by  that  drain  feel  the  value  of  the  freedmen's  labor,  and 
show  them  the  necessity  of  keeping  that  labor  at  home  by  treating  the  la- 
borer well,  and  by  offering  him  inducements  as  fair  as  can  be  offered  elsewhere. 

Conclusion. 

I  may  sum  up  all  I  have  said  in  a  few  words.  If  nothing  were  necessary 
but  to  restore  the  machinery  of  government  in  the  States  lately  in  rebellion  in 
point  of  form,  the  movements  made  to  that  end  by  the  people  of  the  South 
might  be  considered  satisfactory.  But  if  it  is  required  that  the  southern 
people  should  also  accommodate  themselves  to  the  results  of  the  war  in  point 
of  spirit,  those  movements  fall  far  short  of  what  must  be  insisted  upon. 

The  loyalty  of  the  masses  and  most  of  the  leaders  of  the  southern  people, 
consists  in  submission  to  necessity.  There  is,  except  in  individual  instances, 
an  entire  absence  of  that  national  spirit  which  forms  the  basis  of  true  loyalty 
and  patriotism. 

The  emancipation  of  the  slaves  is  submitted  to  only  in  so  far  as  chattel 
slavery  in  the  old  form  could  not  be  kept  up.  But  although  the  freedman  is 
no  longer  considered  the  property  of  the  individual  master,  he  is  considered 
the  slave  of  society,  and  all  independent  State  legislation  will  share  the  ten- 
dency to  make  him  such.  The  ordinances  abolishing  slavery  passed  by  the 
conventions  under  the  pressure  of  circumstances,  will  not  be  looked  upon  as 
barring  the  establishment  of  a  new  form  of  servitude. 

Practical  attempts  on  the  part  of  the  southern  people  to  deprive  the  negro 
of  his  rights  as  a  freeman  may  result  in  bloody  collisions,  and  will  certainly 
plunge  southern  society  into  restless  fluctuations  and  anarchical  confusion. 
Such  evils  can  be  prevented  only  by  continuing  the  control  of  the  national 
government  in  the  States  lately  in  rebellion  until  free  labor  is  fully  devel- 
oped and  firmly  established,  and  the  advantages  and  blessings  of  the  new 
order  of  things  have  disclosed  themselves.  This  desirable  result  will  be 
hastened  by  a  firm  declaration  on  the  part  of  the  government,  that  national 
control  in  the  South  will  not  cease  until  such  results  are  secured. 


25 


Extract  frcm  Documents  accompanying  the  Report  of  Major  General  Carl  Schnrz. 

STATEMENT  OP  GEtfEKAL  THOMAS  KILBY  SMITH. 

September  14,  1865. 

I  have  been  in  command  of  the  southern  district  of  Alabama  since  the  commencement  of 
General  Canby's  expedition  against  Mobile. 

On  the  4th  "of  July  I  permitted  in  Mobile  a  procession  of  the  freedmen,  the  only  class  of 
people  in  Mobile  who  craved  of  me  the  privilege  of  celebrating  the  anniversary  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence.  S:x  thousand  well-dressed  and  orderly  colored  people,  escorted  by  two 
regiments  of  colored  troops,  paraded  the  streets,  assembled  in  the  public  squares,  and  were 
addressed  in  patriotic  speeches  by  orators  of  their  own  race  and  color.  These  orators  coun- 
selled them  to  labor  and  to  wait.  This  procession  and  these  orations  were  the  signal  for  a 
storm  of  abuse  upon  the  military  and  the  freedmen  and  their  friends,  fulminated  from  the 
street  corners  by  the  then  mayor  of  the  city  and  his  common  council  and  in  the  daily  news- 
papers, and  was  the  signal  for  the  hirelings  of  the  former  slave  power  to  hound  down,  perse- 
cute, and  destroy  the  industrious  and  inoffensive  negro.  These  men  were  found  for  the  most 
part  by  the  police  of  the  city,  acting  under  the  direction  of  the  mayor,  R.  H.  Hough,  since 
removed.  The  enormities  committed  by  these  policemen  were  fearful.  Within  my  own  knowl- 
edge colored  girls  seized  upon  the  streets  had  to  take  their  choice  between  submitting  to  out- 
rage on  the  part  of  the  policemen  or  incarceration  in  the  guard-house.  These  men^  having 
mostly  been  negro  drivers  and  professional  negro  whippers,  were  fitting  tools  for  the  work  in 
hand."  Threats  of  and  attempts  at  assassination  were  made  against  myself.  Threats  were 
made  to  destroy  all  school-houses  in  which  colored  children  were  taught,  and  in  two  instances 
they  were  fired.  The  same  threats  were  made  against  all  churches  in  which  colored  people 
assembled  to  worship,  and  one  of  them  burned.  Continued  threats  of  assas&ti>ation  were 
made  against  the  colored  preachers,  and  one  of  them  is  now  under  special  guard  by  order  of 
Major-General  Wood.  When  Mayor  Hough  was  appealed  to  by  this  man  for  protection,  he 
was  heard  to  say  that  no  one  connected  with  the  procession  of  the  4th  of  July  need  to  come 
into  his  court,  and  that  their  complaints  would  not  be  considered.  Although  Mayor  Hough 
has  been  removed,  a  large  majority  of  these  policemen  are  still  in  office. 

One  of  the  most  intelligent  and  high-bred  ladies  of  Mobile,  having  had  silver  plate  stolen 
from  her  more  than  two  years  ago,  and  having,  upon  affidavit,  secured  the  incarceration  of 
two  of  her  former  slaves  whom  she  suspected  of  the  theft,  came  to  me  in  my  official  capacity, 
and  asked  my  order  to  have  them  whipped  and  tortured  into  a  confession  of  tbe  crime  charged 
and  the  participants  in  it.  This  lady  was  surprised  when  I  informed  her  that  the  days  of  the 
rack  and  the  thumbscrew  were  passed,  and,  though  pious,  well-bred,  and  a  member  of  the 
church,  thought  it  a  hardship  that  a  negro  might  not  be  whipped  or  tortured  till  he  would 
confess  what  he  might  know  about  a  robbery,  although  not  even  a  prima  facie  case  existed 
against  him,  or  that  sort  of  evidence  that  would  induce  a  grand  jury  to  indict.  I  offer  this  as 
an  instance  of  the  feeling  that  exists  in  all  classes  against  the  negro,  and  their  inability  to 
realize  that  he  is  a  free  man  and  entitled  to  the  rights  of  citizenship. 

Speeches  of  Hon.  Sylvanus  Evans  and  Richard  Cooper,  candidates  for 
Congress  and  Attorney- General,  Vicksburg,  September  19,  1865. 

Pursuant  to  a  call  published  in  our  yesterday's  issue,  a  large  number  of  citizens  assembled 
at  Apollo  Hall  last  evening  to  listen  to  addresses  from  prominent  candidates  for  office  at  the 
ensuing  election. 

Shortly  after  8  o'clock  Hon.  A.  Burwell  introduced  Hon.  Richard  Cooper  to  the  meeting, 
who  addressed  them  as  follows  : 

SPEECH  OF  MR.  COOPER. 

Fellow-Citizens  :  I  present  myself  before  you  to-night  as  a  candidate  for  ihe  office  of 
attorney-general.  I  have  not  before  spoken  in  public  since  announcing  myself,  relying  wholly 
upon  my  friends  and  past  record.  I  have  resided  in  this  State  twenty-nine  years,  and  have 
for  twelve  years  been  a  prosecuting  attorney. 

Soon  after  announcing  myself  I  found  I  had  an  opponent,  and  I  concluded  to  accompany 
my  friend,  Judge  Evans,  to  Vicksburg,  merely  to  make  myself  known,  not  intending  to 
make  a  speech. 

1  was  born  in  Georgia.  The  first  vote  I  ever  cast  was  with  the  old-line  Whig  party.  [Ap- 
plause.] In  1850  I  opposed  an  attempt  to  break  up  the  United  States  government,  and  in 
1860  1  did  the  same  thing.  I  travelled  in  Alabama  and  Mississippi  to  oppose  the  measure. 
[Applause.]  But  after  the  State  did  secede  I  did  all  in  my  power  to  sustain  it.  [Heavy 
applause.]  I  never  entered  the  army,  having  held  a  civil  office,  and  was  advised  by  my 
friends  that  I  could  do  more  good  in"  that  way  than  by  entering  the  service.  I  believed  in 
secession  while  it  lasted,  but  am  now  as  good  a  Union  man  as  exists,  and  am  in  favor  of 
breaking  down  old  barriers,  and  making  harmony  and  peace  prevail. 

I  was  a  delegate  to  the  State  convention  lately  in  session  at  Jackson,  and  hope  the  legisla- 
ture wi>l  carry  out  the  suggestions  of  the  convention.  I  believe  the  negro  is  entitled  to  the 
claims  of  a  freeman,  now  that  he  is  made  free,  and  I  hope  he  will  have  them  secured  to  him. 
I  am  thankful  that  Mississippi  has  the  right  of  jurisdiction;  and  I  hope  she  will  always  have 
it.  The  office  I  am  a  candidate  for  is  not  a  political,  but  strictly  a  judicial  office.  If  elected 
I  shall  use  my  utmost  endeavors  to  promote  the  interests  of  the  State  and  country. 

Hon.  Sylvanus  Evans  was  then  introduced  to  the  audience  by  Mr.  Cooper,  who  spoke  sub- 
stantially as  follows : 


2G 


SPEECH  OF  JUDGE  EVANS. 

VgLLOW-ClTTmrfl  of  Wabbik  County:  I  am  grateful  to  meet  yon  here  this  evening, 
although  a  stranger  to  most  of  you.  Here  you  must  judge  of  my  standing,  and  I  hope  you 
will  pardon  me  while  I  attempt  to  explain  my  position  to  you.  I  came  to  Mississippi  in 
1837,  and  moved  to  Lauderdale  county  in  1330  ;  by  profession  in  early  life,  a  blacksmith, 
latterly  a  lawyer,  practicing  in  eastern  Mississippi  ;  to  some  extent  a  politician,  always  bc- 
1  cving  in  the  policy  of  the  old-line  Whigs,  and  always  acting  with  them.  In  1851  I  "was  a 
delegate  from  Lauderdale  county  to  the  State  convention,  then,  as  in  1860.  being  opposed  to 
the  act  of  secession,  and  fought  against  it  with  all  my  powers.  But  after  the  State  had 
seceded  I  went  with  it  as  a  matter  of  duty,  and  I  sustained  it  until  the  day  of  tbe  surrender 
with  all  my  body  and  heart  and  mind.  [Great  applause.]  I  believed  that  tbe  majority  of 
tbe  people  did  not  know  what  was  to  come,  but,  blending  their  interests  with  mine,  I  could 
not,  with  honor,  keep  from  it. 

We  are  now  emerging;  now  daylight  is  dawning  upon  ns.  But  whether  peace  and  pros- 
perity shall  return  in  its  fullness  is  now  a  question  with  the  people.  I  am  a  candidate  before 
you  for  the  United  States  Congress.  Let  me  say  to  you,  as  wise  men,  that  unless  the  people 
and  the  legislature  do  their  duty,  it  is  useless  to  send  me  or  any  one  else  to  Washington,  as 
we  cannot  tbere  obtain  seats  in  Congress. 

We  are  not  willing  that  the  negro  shall  testify  in  our  courts.  We  all  revolt  at  it,  and  it  is 
natural  tbat  we  should  do  so ;  but  we  must  allow  it  as  one  of  the  requisites  of  our  admission 
to  our  original  standing  in  the  Union.  To-day  the  negro  is  as  competent  a  witness  in  our 
State  as  the  white  man,  made  so  by  the  action  of  the  convention.  The  credibility  of  the 
witness  is  to  be  determined  by  the  jurors  and  justices.  If  you  refuse  his  testimony,  as  is 
being  done,  the  result  will  be  the  military  courts  and.Freedmen's  Bureau  will  take  it  up,  and 
jurisdiction  is  lost,  and  those  who  best  know  the  negro  will  be  denied  the  privilege  of  passing 
judgment  upon  it,  and  those  who  know  him  least  are  often  more  in  favor  of  his  testimony 
than  yours. 

The  President  and  the  conservative  element  of  the  North  are  determined  that  the  negro 
shall  be  placed  where  nature  places  him,  in  spite  of  the  fanatics. 

Another  important  point — a  great  debt  has  been  contracted  by  the  federal  government. 
The  South  cannot  pay  a  proportion  of  that  debt.  I  am  opposed  to  repudiation,  but  am  in 
favor  of  relieving  the  South  of  the  internal  revenue  tax. 

My  opponent,  Mr  West,  contends  that  Mississippi  must  pay  her  taxes  up  to  1865.  I  do 
not  think  so  ;  and  this  is  the  only  issue  between  us.  I  deny  that  the  government  has  a  right 
to  levy  such  a  tax,  and  contend  that  the  government  cannot  impose  a  tax  upon  a  State  unless 
that  State  participates  in  the  accumulation  of  that  debt.  At  tbe  time  t.bis  debt  was  contracted  -. 
we  were  recognized  as  belligerents,  and  not  liable  to  a  share  of  the  debt  then  contracted  for. 
That  back  tax  can  only  be  collected  by  a  special  act  of  Congress,  and,  if  elected,  I  shall 
op#pose  any  such  act. 

Determine  for  yourselves  whether  or  not  the  President  does  not  offer  terms  that  should  suit 
any  of  us  ;  is  he  not  trying  to  stay  the  tide  of  fanaticism  at  the  North  that  would  overwhelm 
us  1  Has  he  not  shown  it  in  our  own  State,  in  the  appointment  of  our  military  governor? 
No  man  in  the  State  could  have  been  appointed  to  give  more  general  satisfaction  than  W.  L. 
Sharkey,  an  able,  straightforward,  just  man. 

The  President,  in  his  speech  to  the  Southern  delegation,  assures  them  that  he  is  determined 
to  stay  the  tremendous  tide  of  the  fanatics  of  the  North,  and  that  suffrage  to  the  negro  shall 
not  be  forced  upon  the  people  of  the  South. 

If  elected,  I  will  heartily  co-operate  with  the  President  in  his  policy  of  reconstruction,  for 
I  am  bi  teriy  opposed  to  conferring  the  right  of  suffrage  upon  the  negro. 

List  of  colored  people  killed  or  maimed  by  ivhite  men  and  treated  at  Post 

Hospital,  Montgomery. 

1.  Nancy,  colored  woman,  ears  cut  off.  She  had  followed  Wilson's  column  towards  Macon 
two  or  three  days,  and  when  returning  camped  near  the  road,  and  while  asleep  a  white  man 
by  the  name  of  Ferguson,  or  Foster,  an  overseer,  came  upon  her  and  cut  her  ears  off.  This 
happened  in  April,  about  thirty  miles  east  of  Montgomery. 

2.  Mary  Steel,  one  side -of  her  head  scalped  ;  died.    She  was  with  Nancy. 

3.  Jacob  Steel,  both  ears  cut  off;  was  with  the  same  party. 

4.  Amanda  Steel,  ears  cut  off;  was  with  the  same  party. 

5.  Washington  Booth,  shot  in  the  back,  near  Montgomery,  while  returning  from  his  work, 
May  1.  He  was  shot  by  William  Harris,  of  Pine  Level,  thirty  miles  from  here,  without  any 
provocation. 

6.  Sutton  Jones,  beard  and  chin  cut  off.    He  belonged  to  Nancy's  party,  and  was  maimed 
by  the  same  man. 

7.  About  six  colored  people  were  treated  at  this  hospital,  who  were  shot  by  persons  in 
ambuscade  during  the  months  of  June  and  July.  Their  names  cannot  be  found  in  a  hasty 
review  of  the  record. 

8.  Robert,  servant  of  Colonel  Hough,  was  stabbed  while  at  his  house  by  a  man  wearing  in 
part  tbe  garb  of  a  confederate  soldier  ;  died  on  the  26th  of  June,  in  this  hospital,  about  seven 
days  after  having  been  stabbed. 

9.  Ida.  a  young  colored  girl,  was  struck  on  the  head  with  a  club  by  an  overseer,  about 
thirtv  miles  from  here  ;  died  of  her  wouud  at  this  hospital,  June  20. 

10. "  James  Taylor,  stabbed  about  half  a  mile  from  town  ;  had  seven  stabs  that  entered  his 


27 


Inngs.  two  in  his  arms,  two  pistol-shots  grazed  hiin,  and  one  arm  cut  one-third  off,  on  the 
ISt.h  of  June.    Offender  escaped 

11.  James  Monroe,  cut  across  the  throat  while  engaged  in  saddling  a  horse.  The  offen  der, 
a  white  man  by  the  name  of  Metcalf,  was  arrested.  No  provocation.  Case  happened  on 
August  19,  in  this  city. 

These  cases  came  to  my  notice  as  surgeon  in  charge  of  the  post  hospital  at  Montgomery. 
I  treated  them  myself,  and  certify  that  the  above  statements  are  correct. 

Montgomery  Hall,  August  21,  1865. 

J.  M.  PHIPPS, 
Acting  Staff  Surgeon,  in  charge  of  Post  Hospital. 

Office  Provost  Marshal, 
Post  of  Selma,  Alabama,  August  22,  18G5. 

I  have  the  honor  to  report  the  following  facts  in  regard  to  the  treatment  of  colored  persons 
by  whites  within  the  limits  of  my  observation  : 

There  have  come  i*nder  my  notice,  officially,  twelve  cases  in  which  I  am  morally  certain 
(the  trials  have  not  beeu  had  yet)  that  negroes  were  killed  by  whites,  In  a  majority  of 
cases  the  provocation  consisted  in  the  negroes  trying  to  come  to  town,  or  to  return  to  the 
plantation  after  having  been  sent  away.    These  cases  are  in  part  as  follows  : 

Wilson  H.  Gordon,  convicted  by  military  commission  of  having  shot  and  drowned  a  negro, 
May  14,  1865. 

Samuel  Smiley,  charged, with  having  shot  one  negro  and  wounded  another,  acquitted  on 
proof  of  an  alibi.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  one  negro  was  shot  and  another  wounded,  as 
stated.    Trial  occurred  in  June. 

Three  negroes  were  killed  in  the  southern  part  of  Dallas  county ;  it  is  supposed  by  the 
Vaughn  family.    I  tried  twice  to  arrest  them,  but  they  escaped  into  the  woods. 

Mr.  Alexander,  Perry  county,  shot  a  negro  for  being  around  his  quarters  at  a  late  hour. 
He  went  into  his  house  with  a  gun  and  claimed  to  have  shot  the  negro  accidentally.  The 
fact  is,  the  negro  is  dead. 

Mr.  Dermott,  Perry  county,  started  with  a  negro  to  Selma,  having  a  rope  around  the  negro's 
neck.  He  was  seen  dragging  him  in  that  way;  but  returned  home  before  he  could  have 
reached  Selma.  He  did  not  report  at  Selma,  and  the  negro  has  never  since  been  heard  of. 
The  neighbors  declare  their  belief  that  the  negro  was  killed  by  him.  This  was  about  the  10th 
of  July. 

Mr.  Higginbothom,  and  Threadgill,  charged  with  killing  a  negro  in  Wilcox  county,  whose 
body  was  found  in  the  woods,  came  to  my  notice  the  first  week  of  August. 

A  negro  was  killed  on  Mr.  Brown's  place,  about  nine  miles  from  Selma,  on  the  20th  of 
August.    Nothing  further  is  known  of  it.    Mr.  Brown  himself  reported. 

A  negro  was  killed  in  the  calaboose  of  the  city  of  Selma,  by  being  beaten  with  a  heavy 
club  ;  also,  by  being  tied  up  by  the  thumbs,  clear  of  the  floor,  for  three  hours,  and  by  further 
gross  abuse,  lasting  more  than  a  week,  until  he  died. 

I  can  further  state,  that  within  the  limits  of  my  official  observation  crime  is  rampant ;  that 
life  is  insecure  as  well  as  property  ;  and  that  the  country  is  filled  with  desperadoes  and  ban- 
ditti who  rob  and  plunder  on  every  side,  and  that  the  county  is  emphatically  in  a  condition 
of  anarchy. 

The  cases  of  crime  above  enumerated,  I  am  convinced,  are  but  a  small  part  of  those  that 
have  actually  been  perpetrated. 

I  am,  very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

J.  P.  HOUSTON 

Major  5th  Minnesota,  and  Provost  Marshal  IT.  S.  Forces  at  Selma,  Alabama. 
Major  General  Carl  Schdrz. 

Freedmen's  Bureau,  July  29,  1865. 

Sir  :  I  have  the  honor  to  report  some  testimony  I  have  received  of  the  murders  and  bar- 
barities committed  on  the  freedmen  in  Clark,  Choctaw,  Washington  and  Marengo  counties, 
also  the  Alabama  and  Bigbee  rivers. 

About  the  last  of  April,  two  freedmen  were  hung  in  Clark  county. 

On  the  night  of  the  eleventh  of  May,  a  freedman  named  Alfred  was  taken  from  his  bed  by 
his  master  and  others  and  was  hung,  and  his  body  still  hangs  to  the  limb. 

About  the  middle  of  June,  two  colored  soldiers  (at  a  house  in  Washington  county)  showed 
their  papers  and  were  permitted  to  remain  all  night.  In  the  morning  the  planter  called  them 
out  and  shot  one  dead,  wounded  the  other,  and  then  with  the  assistance  of  his  brother  (and 
their  negro  dogs)  they  pursued  the  one  who  had  escaped.  He  ran  about  three  miles  and 
found  a  refugeln  a  white  man's  house,  who  informed  the  pursuers  that  he  had  passed.  The 
soldier  was  finally  got  across  the  river,  but  has  not  been  heard  of  since. 

At  Bladen  Springs,  (or  rather  six  miles  from  there,)  a  freedman  was  chained  to  a  pine  tree 
and  burned  to  death. 

About  two  weeks  after,  and  fifteen  miles  from  Bladen,  another  freedman  was  burned  to 
death. 

In  the  latter  part  of  May,  fifteen  miles  south  of  Bladen,  a  freedman  was  shot  outside  of  the 
planter's  premises  and  the  body  dragged  into  the  stable,  to  make  it  appear  he  had  shot  him 
in  the  act  of  stealing. 

About  the  first  of  June,  six  miles  west  of  Bladen,  a  freedman  was  hung.  His  body  is  still 
hanging. 


28 


About  the  last  of  May,  three  freed  men  were  coming  down  the  Bigbee  river  in  a  shift  when 
two  ol  them  were  sbot ;  the  other  escaped  to  the  other  shore. 

At  Magnolia  Bluff  (Bigbee  river)  a  frcedman  (Darned  George)  was  ordered  out  of  his 
cabin  to  be  whipped  5  he  started  to  run,  when  the  men  (three  of  them)  set  their  docs  (five  of 
them)  on  him,  and  one  of  the  men  rode  up  to  George  and  struck  him  to  the  earth  with  a 
loaded  whip.  Two  of  them  dragged  him  back  by  the  heels  while  the  dogs  were  lacerating 
his  face  and  body.  They  then  placed  a  stick  across  his  neck,  and  while  one  stood  on  it  the 
others  beat  him  until  life  was  nearly  extinct. 

About  the  first  of  May,  near   Landing,  in  Choctaw  county,  a  freedman  was  hung  ; 

and  about  the  same  time,  near  the  same  neighborhood,  a  planter  shot  a  freedman,  (who  was 
talking  to  one  of  his  servants, )  and  dragged  the  body  into  his  garden  to  conceal  it. 

A  preacher  (near  Bladen  Springs)  states  in  the  pulpit  that  the  roads  in  Choctaw  county 
Stunk  with  the  d  ad  bodies  of  servants  that  had  fled  from  their  masters. 

1  ho  peop'e  about  Bladen  declare  that  no  negro  shall  live  in  the  countv,  unless  he  remains 
with  his  master  and  is  as  obedient  as  heretofore. 

In  Clark  county,  about  the  first  of  June,  a  freedman  was  shot  through  the  heart :  his  bodv 
lies  uuburied. 

About  the  last  of  May,  a  planter  hung  his  servant  (a  woman)  in  presence  of  all  the  neigh- 
borhood. Said  planter  had  killed  this  woman's  husband  three  weeks  before.  This  occurred 
at  Suggsville,  Clark  county. 

About  the  last  of  April,  two  women  were  caught  near  a  certain  plantation  in  Clark  county 
and  hung  ;  their  bodies  are  still  suspended. 

On  the  19th  of  July,  two  freedmen  were  taken  off  the  steamer  Commodore  Ferrand,  tied, 
and  hung  ;  then  taken  down,  their  heads  cut  off  and  their  bodies  thrown  in  the  river. 

July  11,  two  men  took  a  woman  off  the  same  boat  and  threw  her  in  the  river.  This  wo- 
man had  a  coop,  with  some  chickens.  They  threw  all  in  together,  and  told  her  to  go  to  the 
damned  Yankees.    The  woman'was  drowned. 

There  are  regular  patrols  posted  on  the  rivers,  who  board  some  of  the  boats  ;  after  the  boats 
leave  they4'hang,  6hoot  or  drown  the  victims  they  may  find  on  them,  and  all  those  found  on 
the  roads  or  coming  down  the  river  are  most  invariably  murdered. 

This  is  only  a  few  of  the  murders  that  are  committed  on  the  helpless  and  unprotected  freed- 
men of  the  above-named  counties. 

W.  A.  POILLON, 

Captain  and  Ass't.  SupH  Freedmen. 

Brig.  Gen.  Swatne. 

A  true  copy  of  the  original  deposited  in  this  office. 

CHARLES  A.  MILLER, 

Major  and  A.  A.  A.  General. 

Statement  of  Colonel  Samuel  Thomas,  Assistant  Commissioner  B.  R.  F. 
and  A.  L.for  Mississippi  and  N.  E.  Louisiana. 

Vicksburg,  August  Zd,  1865. 

The  admission  of  negro  testimony  will  never  secure  the  freedmen  justice  before  the  courts 
of  this  State  as  long  as  that  testimony  is  considered  valueless  by  the  judges  and  juries  who 
hear  it.  It  is  of  no  consequence  what  the  law  may  be  if  the  majority  be  not  inclined  to  have 
it  executed.  A  negro  might  bring  a  suit  before  a  magistrate  and  have  colored  witnesses 
examined  in  his  behalf,  according  to  provisions  of  general  orders  and  United  States  law,  and 
yet  the  prejudices  of  the  community  render  it  impossible  for  him  to  procure  justice.  The 
judge  would  claim  the  right  to  decide  whether  the  testimony  was  credible,  and  among  the 
neighbors  that  would  surround  him,  in  many  places,  he  would  be  bold  indeed,  if  he  be- 
lieved the  sworn  evidence  of  a  negro  when  confronted  by  the  simple  assertion  or  opposed 
even  to  the  interest  of  a  white  man.  I  recently  heard  a  circle  of  Mississippians  conversing 
on  this  subject.  Their  conclusion  was,  that  they  would  make  no  objection  to  the  admission 
of  negro  testimony,  because  "  no  southern  man  would  believe  a  nigger  if  he  had  the  damned 
impudence  to  testify  contrary  to  the  statement  of  a  white  man."  I  verily  believe  that  in 
many  places  a  colored  man  would  refuse,  from  fear  of  death,  to  make  a  complaint  against  a 
white  man  before  a  State  tribunal  if  there  were  no  efficient  military  protection  at  hand.  | 

Wherever  I  go — the  street,  the  shop,  the  house,  the  hotel,  or  the  steamboat — I  hear  the 
peoplu  talk  in  such  a  way  as  to  indicate  that  they  are  yet  unable  to  conceive  of  the  negro 
as  possessing  any  rights  at  all.  Men  who  are  honorable  in  their  dealings  with  their  white 
neighbors  will  cheat  a  negro  without  feeling  a  single  twinge  of  their  houor.  To  kill  a  negro| 
they'do  not  deem  murder;  to  debauch  a  negro  woman  they  do  not  think  fornication  ;  to  take 
the  property  away  from  a  negro  they  do  not  consider  robbery.  The  people  boast  that  wrhen 
they  get  freedmen  affairs  in  their  own  hands,  to  use  their  own  expression,  "  the  niggers  wilh 
catch  hell."  I 

The  reason  of  all  this  is  simple  and  manifest.  The  whites  esteem  the  blacks  their  property, 
by  natural  right,  and  however  much  they  may  admit  that  the  individual  relations  of  masters( 
and  slaves  have  been  destroyed  by  the  war  and  by  the  President's  emancipation  proclamation,! 
they  still  have  an  ingrainedfeeling  that  the  blacks  at  large  belong  to  the  whites  at  large,  and! 
whenever  opportunity  serves  they  treat  the  colored  people  just  as  their  profit,  caprice  or  pas-( 
sion  may  dictate. 


29 


Ordinance  relative  to  the  police  of  recently  emancipated  negroes  or  freedmen 
within  the  corporate  limits  of  the  town  of  Opelousas. 

"Whereas,  the  relations  formerly  existing  between  master  and  slave  have  become  changed 
by  the  action  of  the  controlling  authorities ;  and  whereas  it  is  necessary  to  provide  for  the 
proper  police  and  government  of  the  recently  emancipated  negroes  or  freedmen  in  their  new 
relations  to  the  municipal  authorities  : 

Section  1.  Be  it  therefore  ordained  by  the  board  of  police  of  the  town  of  Opelousas,  That  no 
negro  or  freedman  shall  be  allowed  to  come  within  the  limits  of  the  town  of  Opelousas  with- 
out special  permission  from  his  employers,  specifying  the  object  of  his  visit  and  the  time 
necessary  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  same.  Whoever  shall  violate  this  provision  shall 
suffer  imprisonment  and  two  days'  work  on  the  public  streets,  or  shall  pay  a  fine  of  two  dollars 
and  fifty  cents. 

Sect.  2.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  every  negro  freedman  who  shall  be  found  on  the 
streets  of  Opelousas  after  ten  o'clock  at  night  without  a  written  pass  or  permit  from  his  em- 
ployer shall  be  imprisoned  and  compelled  to  work  five  days  on  the  public  streets,  or  pay  a 
fine  of  five  dollars. 

Sect.  3.  No  negro  or  freedmen  shall  be  permitted  to  rent  or  keep  a  house  within  the  limits 
of  the  town  under  any  circumstances,  and  any  one  thus  offending  shall  be  ejected  and  com- 
pelled to  find  an  employer  or  leave  the  town  within  twenty-four  hours.  The  lessor  or  furnisher 
of  the  house  leased  or  kept  as  above  shall  pay  a  fine  of  ten  dollars  for  each  offence. 

Sect.  4.  No  ne<rro  or  freedman  shall  reside  within  the  limits«of  the  town  of  Opelousas  who 
is  not  in  the  regular  service  of  some  white  person  or  former  owner,  who  shall  be  held  respon- 
sible for  the  conduct  of  said  freedman  ;  but  said  employer  or  former  owner  may  permit  said 
freedman  to  hire  his  time  by  special  permis'sion  in  writing,  which  permission  shall  not  extend 
over  twenty -four  hours  at  any  one  time.  Any  one  violatirig  the  provisions  of  this  section  shall, 
be  imprisoned  and  forced  to  work  for  two  days  on  the  publiVstreets. 

Sect.  5.  No  public  meeting  or  congregation  of  negroes  oi  freedmen  shall  be  allowed  within 
the  limits  of  the  town  of  Opelousas  under  any  circumstances  or  for  any  purpose,  without 
the  permission  of  the  mayor  or  president  of  the  board.  This  prohibition  is  not  intended, 
however,  to  prevent  the  freedmen  from  attending  the  usual  church  services  conducted  by 
established  ministers  of  religion.  Every  freedman  violating  this  law  shall  be  imprisoned  and 
made  to  work  five  days  on  the  public  streets. 

Sect.  6.  No  negro  or  freedman  shall  be  permitted  to  preach,  exhort,  or  otherwise  declaim 
to  congregations  of  colored  people  without  a  special  permission  from  the  mayor  or  president 
of  the  board  of  police,  under  the  penalty  of  a  fine  of  ten  dollars  or  twenty  days'  work  on  the 
public  streets. 

Sect.  7.  No  freedman  who  is  not  in  the  military  service  shall  be  allowed  to  carry  fire- 
arms, or  any  kind  of  weapons,  within  the  limits  of  the  town  of  Opelousas  without  the  special 
permission  of  his  employer,  in  writing,  and  approved  by  the  mayor  or  president  of  the  board 
of  police.  Any  one  thus  offending  shall  forfeit  his  weapons  and  shall  be  imprisoned  and 
made  to  work  for  five  days  on  the  public  streets  or  pay  a  fine  of  five  dollars  in  lieu  of  said 
work. 

Sect.  8.  No  freedman  shall  sell,  barter,  or  exchange  any  articles  of  merchandise  or  traffic 
within  the  limits  of  Opelousas  without  permission  in  writing  from  his  employer  or  the  mayor 
or  president  of  the  board,  under  the  penalty  of  the  forfeiture  of  said  articles  and  imprison- 
ment and  one  day's  labor,  or  a  fine  of  one  dollar  in  lieu  of  said  work. 

Sect.  9.  Any  freedman  found  drunk  within  the  limits  of  the  town  shall  be  imprisoned  and 
made  to  labor  five  days  on  the  public  streets,  or  pay  five  dollars  in  lieu  of  said  labor. 

Sect.  10.  Any  freedman  not  residing  in  Opelousas  who  shall  be  found  within  the  corporate 
limits  after  the  hour  of  3  P.  M.,  on  Sunday,  without  a  special  permission  from  his  employer 
or  the  mayor,  shall  be  arrested  and  imprisoned  and  made  to  work  two  days  on  the  public 
streets,  or  pay  two  dollars  in  lieu  of  said  work. 

Sect.  11.  All  the  foregoing  provisions  apply  to  freedmen  and  freedwo'men,  or  both  sexes. 

Sect.  12.  It  shall  be  the  special  duty  of  the  mayor  Or  president  of  the  board  to  see  that  all 
the  provisions  of  this  ordinance  are  faithfully  executed. 

Sect.  13.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  this  ordinance  is  to  take  effect  from  and  after  its 
first  publication.  ' 

Ordained  the  3d  day  of  July,  1865. 

E.  D.  ESTILETTE, 
President  of  the  Board  of  Police. 
JOS.  D.  RICHARDS,  Clerk. 

Official  copy  : 

J.  LOVELL, 
Captain  and  Assistant  Adjutant  General, 

An  Ordinance  relative  to  the  police  of  negroes  recently  emancipated  within 
the  Parish  of  St.  Landry. 

"Whereas,  it  was  formerly  made  the  duty  of  the  police  jury  to  make  suitable  regulations 
for  the  police  of  slaves  within  the  limits  of  the  parish ;  and  whereas,  slaves  have  become 


30 


emancipated  by  the  action  of  the  ruling  powers :  and  whereas,  it  is  necessary  for  public 
order,  as  well  for  the  comfort  and  correct  "deportment  of  said  freed  men,  that  suitable  regula- 
tions should  be  established  for  their  government  in  their  changed  condition,  the  following 
ordinances  are  adopted,  with  the  approval  of  the  United  States  military  authorities  com- 
manding in  said  parish,  viz.  : 

Section  1.  Be  it  ordained  by  the  police  jury  of  the  parish  of  St.  Landry,  That  no  negro 
shall  be  allowed  to  pass  within  the  limits  of  said  parish  without  a  special  permit  in  writing 
from  his  employer.  Whoever  shall  violate  this  provision  shall  pay  a  line  of  two  dollars  and 
fifty  cents,  or  in  default  thereof,  6hall  be  forced  to  work  four  days  on  the  public  road,  or 
suffer  corporeal  punishment  as  provided  hereinafter. 

Sect.  2.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  ev*y  negro  who  shall  be  found  absent  from  the 
residence  of  his  employer  after  10  o'clock  at  night,  without  a  written  permit  from  his  em- 
ployer, shall  pay  a  fine  of  five  dollars,  or  in  default  thereof,  shall  be  compelled  to  work  five 
days  on  the  public  road,  or  suffer  corporeal  punishment  as  hereinafter  provided. 

Sect.  3.  Be  it  further'.ordained,  That  no  negro  shall  be  permitted  to  rent  or  keep  a  house 
within  said  parish.  Any  negro  violating  this  provision  shall  be  immediately  ejected  and 
compelled  to  find  an  employer  ;  and  any  person  who  shall  rent,  or  give  the  use  of  any  house 
to  any  negro,  In  violation  of  this  section,  shall  pay  a  fine  of  five  dollars  for  e^ch  offence. 

Sect.  4.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  every  negro  is  required  to  be  in  the  regular  service  of 
some  white  person,  or  former  owner,  who  shall  be  held  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  said 
negro.  But  said  employer  or  former  owner  may  permit  said  negro  to  hire  his  own  time  by 
special  permission  in  writing,  which  permission  6hall  not  extend  over  seven  days  at  any  one 
time.  Any  negro  violating  the  provisions  of  this  section  shall  be  fined  five  dollars  for  each 
offence,  or  in  default  of  the  payment  thereof,  shall  be  forced  to  work  five  days  on  the  public 
road,  or  suffer  corporeal  punishment  as  hereinafter  provided. 

Sect.  5.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  no  public  meetings  or  congregations  of  negroes  shall 
be  allowed  within  said  parish  after  sunset ;  but  such  public  meetings  and  congregations  may 
be  held  between  the  hours  of  sunrise  and  sunset,  by  the  special  permission  in  writing  of  the 
captain  of  patrol,  within  whose  beat  such  meetings  shall  take  place.  This  prohibition, 
however,  is  not  intended  to  prevent  negroes  from  attending  the  usual  church  services,  con- 
ducted by  white  ministers  and  priests.  Every  negro  violating  the  provisions  of  this  section 
shall  pay  a  fine  of  five  dollars,  or  in  default  thereof,  shall  be  compelled  to  work  five  days  on 
the  public  road,  or  suffer  corporeal  punishment  as  hereinafter  provided. 

Sect.  6.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  no  negro  shall  be  permitted  to  preach,  exhort,  or 
otherwise  declaim  to  congregations  of  colored  people,  without  a  special  permission  in  writing 
from  the  president  of  the  police  jury.  Any  negro  violating  the  provisions  of  this  section 
shall  pay  a  fine  of  ten  dollars,  or  in  default  thereof,  shall  be  forced  to  work  ten  days  on  the 
public  road,  or  suffer  corporeal  punishment  as  hereinafter  provided. 

Sect.  7.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  no  negro  who  is  not  in  the  military  service  shall  be 
allowed  to  carry  fire-arms,  or  any  kind  of  weapons,  within  the  parish,  without  the  special 
written  permission  of  his  employers,  approved  and  indorsed  by  the  nearest  or  most  con- 
venient chief  of  patrol.  Any  one  violating  the  provisions  of  this  section,  shall  forfeit  his 
weapons  and  pay  a  fine  of  five  dollars,  or  in  default  of  the  payment  of  said  fine,  shall  be  forced 
to  work  five  days  on  the  public  road,  or  suffer  corporeal  punishment  as  hereinafter  provided. 

Sect.  8.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  no  negro  shall  sell,  barter,  or  exchange  any  articles 
of  merchandise  or  traffic  within  said  parish,  without  the  special  written  permission  of  his 
employer,  specifying  the  articles  of  sale,  barter  or  traffic.  Any  one  thus  offending  shall  pay 
a  fine  of  one  dollar  for  each  offence,  and  suffer  the  forfeiture  of  said  articles,  or  in  default  of 
the  payment  of  said  fine,  shall  work  one  day  on  the  public  road,  or  suffer  corporeal  punish- 
ment as  hereinafter  provided. 

Sect.  9.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  any  negro  found  drunk  within  the  said  parish  shall 
pay  a  fine  of  five  dollars,  or  in  default  thereof,  shall  work  five  days  on  the  public  road,  or 
Buffer  corporeal  punishment  as  hereinafter  provided. 

Sect.  10.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  all  the  foregoing  provisions  shall  apply  to  negroes 
of -both  sexes. 

Sect.  11.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  every  citizen  to  act  as  a  police 
officer  for  the  detection  of  offences  and  the  apprehension  of  offenders,  who  shall  be  immedi- 
ately handed  over  to  the  proper  captain  or  chief  of  patrol. 

Sect.  12.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  the  aforesaid  penalties  shall  be  summarily  enforced, 
and  that  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  captains  and  chiefs  of  patrol  to  ste  that  the  afor«aid 
ordinances  are  promptly  executed. 

Sect.  13.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  all  sums  collected  from  the  aforesaid  fines  shall  be 
immediately  handed  over  to  the  parish  treasurer. 

Sect.  14.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  the  corporeal  punishment  provided  for  in  the  fore- 
going sections,  shall  consist  in  confining  the  body  of  the  offender  within  a  barrel  placed  over 
his  or  her  shoulders,  in  the  manner  practiced  in  the  army,  such  confinement  not  to  continue 
longer  than  twelve  hours,  and  for  such  time  within  the  aforesaid  limit  as  shall  be  fixed  by 
the  captain  or  chief  of  patrol  who  indicts  the  penalty. 

Sect.  15.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  these  ordinances  shall  not  interfere  with. any  muni- 
cipal or  military  regulations  inconsistent  with  them  within  the  limits  of  said  parish. 

Sect.  16.  Be  it  further  ordained,  That  these  ordinances  shall  take  effect  five  days  after 
their  publication  in  the  Opelousas  Courier. 

Official  copy :  J.  LOVELL, 

Captain  and  Assistant  Adjutant  General, 


3] 


Bureau  Refugees,  Freedmen  and  Abandoned  Lands,  Office  Assistant 
Commissioner  for  State  of  Mississippi. 

Vicksburg,  Mrss.,  September  28,  1865. 
Geveral  :  I  enclose  a  copy  of  the  city  ordinances.    You  will  see  that  negroes  who  sell 
vegetable,  cakes,  &c.,  on  the  street  are  required  to  pay  ten  dollars  (§10)  per^month  for  the 
privilege  of  doing  so. 

To  illustrate  the  workings  of  this  ordinance  I  will  give  you  an  actual  occurrence  in  this 
city. 

About  a  year  ago  an  old  negro  man  named  Henderson,  crippled  with  over-work,  about 
seventy  years  of  age,  was  sent  to  me  for  support  by  the  military  authorities.  I  issued  him 
rations  for  himself  and  wife,  an  old  negro  woman,  incapable  of  doing  anything  but  care  for 
herself.  I  continued  this  till  about  January  1,  1865,  when  the  old  man  came  to  me  and 
informed  me  that  if  I  would  allow  him  to  sell  apples  and  cakes  to  the  soldiers  on  a  corner  of 
the  street  near  my  office,  under  a  large  tree  that  grew  there,  he  thought  he  could  care  for 
himsolf  and  make  enough  to  support  himself  and  wife.  I  immediately  gave  him  permission 
and  an  order  to  protect  him.  I  had  but  little  faith  in  his  being  able  to  do  it,  as  he  was  com- 
pelled to  go  on  crutches  and  was  bent  nearly  double,  owing  to  a  severe  whipping  his  old 
master  had  given  him  many  years  ago. 

He  commenced  his  work,  and,  much  to  my  surprise,  made  enough  to  support  himself,  and 
asked  for  no  more  assistance  from  me. 

"When  the  city  authorities  took  charge  of  the  city  matters  the  marshal  of  the  city  ordered 
him  to  pay  the  ten  dollars  per  month  for  the  privilege  of  supporting  himself  or  desist  from 
such  trade. 

The  old  man  told  him  that  all  his  profits  would  not  amount  to  ten  dollars  per  month,  and 
that  in  some  months  he  did  not  make  that  amount  of  sales,  but,  as  Colonel  Thomas  provided 
him  with  a  place  to  live,  he  could  barely  support  himself  by  such  trade.  The  marshal  of  the 
city  informed  him  that  the  tax  must  be  paid  by  all,  and  that  Colonel  Thomas  could  take  care 
of  him,  as  it  was  his  duty  to  do  so. 

The  old  man  came  to  my  office  and  told  me  the  whole  affair.  I  wrote  a  letter  to  the  mayor 
setting  forth  the  whole  case,  and  that  the  collection  of  this  tax  on  such  old  cripples  would 
compel  me  to  support  them,  as  they  could  not  pay  the  city  ten  dollars  per  month  and  make 
their  support.  In  fact,  ten  dollars  per  month  is  the  common  wages  for  negro  labor.  The 
mayor  refused  to  allow  the  negro  to  continue  his  sales,  and  I  was  compelled  to  take  charge 
of  him.  I  would  have  refused  to  allow  the  city  authorities  to  interrupt  him  had  it  not  been 
for  General  Orders  No.  10,  from  headquarters  department  of  Mississippi,  allowing  the  mayor 
to  take  charge  of  such  matters. 

You  will  see  by  the  city  ordinance  that  a  drayman  or  hackman  must  file  a  bond  of  five 
hundred  dollars  in  addition  to  paying  for  his  license.  The  mayor  requires  that  the  bondsmen 
shall  be  freeholders.  The  laws  of  this  State  do  not,  and  never  did,  allow  a  negro  to  own  land 
or  hold  property.    The  white  citizens  refuse  to  sign  any  bonds  for  the  freedmen. 

The  white  citizens  and  authorities  say  that  it  is  for  their  interest  to  drive  out  all  inde- 
pendent negro  labor  ;  that  the  freedmen  must  hire  to  white  men  if  they  wish  to  do  this  kind 
of  work.  I  am,  general,  very  respectfullv, 

SAMUEL  THOMAS, 
Colonel,  Assistant  Commissioner,  Frecdmen's  Bureau,  State  of  Mississippi. 
Major-General  C.  Schurz. 

Freedmen1  s  Bureau,  State  of  Mississippi,  Office  Slate  Superintendent  of 

Education. 

Vicksburg,  Miss.,  September  28,  1865. 

General  :  At  the  request  of  Colonel  Thomas,  I  beg  your  attention  to  a  few  considerations 
touching  the  turning  over  of  the  care  of  the  freedmen  in  Mississippi  to  the  State  authorities, 
so  far  as  the  transfer  bears  upon  the  religious  and  educational  privileges  of  the  colored  people. 
Perhaps  no  one  who  has  been  less  engaged  in  caring  for  the  education  and  the  moral  interests 
of  these  people  can  fully  appreciate  the  facts  that  I  intend  to  lay  before  you,  or  understand 
them  as  having  the  intensity  of  meaning  that  I  see  in  them. 

I  have  seen  a  good  deal  of  the  people  of  Mississippi,  and  have  purposely  sounded  them  as 
to  their  feelings  with  regard  to  the  effort  to  educate  the  blacks.  The  general  feeling  is  that 
of  strong  opposition  to  it.  Only  one  person  resident  in  Mississippi  before  the  rebellion  has 
expressed  himself  to  me  as  in  favor  of  it,  and  he  did  not  propose  to  do  anything  to  aid  it ; 
and,  to  show  how  much  his  favor  was  worth,  he  said  he  regretted  that  he  was  not  able  to  pre- 
vent the  negroes  from  having  shouting  meetings,  and  that  he  would  keep  them  from  going 
off  the  plantation  to  meeting  now  if  he  could,  as  he  formerly  did.  Aside  from  this  gentleman, 
every  native  Mississippian  and  Irishman  with  whom  I  have  conversed  opposes  the  instruc- 
tion of  freedmen.  Some  disguise  their  opposition  by  affected  contemptuous  disbelief  of  the 
negro's  capacity.  All  the  facts  that  we  can  give  them,  however  rich  and  suggestive,  are 
received  with  sneering  incredulity  and  the  assurance  that  they  know  the  negroes  better  than 
we  do.  A  little  persistence  in  giving  this  class  of  men  facts  disproving  their  assertions  usu- 
ally makes  them  angry,  and  leads  them  to  declare  that  if  the  negro  can  learn,  the  greater 


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the  damage  that  will  be  done  them,  for  the  education  will  do  them  no  good,  and  will  spoil 
them.  Others  take  this  last-mentioned  ground  at  first,  and  say  that  a  learned  negro  is  a  nui- 
sauee ;  for,  while  he  is  ignorant,  stupid,  and  brutish,  he  may  be  compelled  to  labor:  but  as 
soon  as  he  comes  to  know  something  the  white  people  cannot  make  so  profitable  use  of  him. 

Some  manifest  great  spite  when  the  subject  is  mentioned.  They  say  we  are  trying  to  mak»3 
the  negro  equal  with  them.  Many  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  he  ought  to  be  kept  uneducated 
in  order  that  he  may  not  be  superior  to  ignorant  white  men. 

I  have  discovered  that  many  object  to  the  negro  women's  being  educated  lest  they  should 
be  led  to  respect  themselves,  and  not  so  easily  be  made  the  instruments  of  the  white  man's 
lust. 

The  people  of  Vicksburg  have  asked  Colonel  Thomas  to  prevent  the  establishment  of  col- 
ored schools  within  the  city — they  would  probably  say,  to  preserve  the  peace  of  the  city  ;  but 
I  feel  sure  it  is  because  the  sight  of  them  gives  pain.  And  if  their  removal  ever  becomes 
necessary  to  the  peace  of  a  place,  the  fact  will  illustrate  public  feeling  sufficiently. 

I  have  heard  more  than  one  person  say  that  he  would  kill  a  colored  teacher  if  he  ever  saw 
one. 

The  children  of  a  community  generally  express  the  public  feeling,  and  we  may  usually 
learn  from  them  what  the  feeling  is,  even  when  the  parents,  from  prudence,  seek  to  conceal 
it.  Children  often  exaggerate,  but  they  get  their  bias  at  home.  The  children  of  Mississippi 
throw  stones  at  colored  scholars,  and  are  only  restrained  by  fear  from  mobbing  colored  schools. 

My  memorandum  book  contains  such  information  as  to  points  in  the  interior  of  the  State  as 
I  can  gather  from  officers,  and  from  any  reliable  source,  to  guide  me  in  locating  teachers. 
Some  of  these  memoranda  are  :  "Garrison  withdrawn;  school  impossible."  "  No  resident 
federal  officer  ;  a  teacher  could  not  be  protected."  ''People  much  prejudiced;  protection 
cannot  be  guaranteed."  Such  things  are  said  in  regard  to  every  place  not  under  northern 
protection.  I  think  I  do  not  overstate  in  saying  that  I  do  not  know  a  single  northern  man 
in  Mississippi  who  supposes  a  colored  school  possible  where  there  is  no  federal  sword  or 
bayonet.  Some  northern  men  do  not  regret  this  fact,  perhaps  ;  aud  this  makes  their  testimony 
on  this  point  more  valuable. 

White  churches  recover  their  houses  of  worship  which  the  blacks  helped  to  build,  and 
which  they  have  repaired  extensively  during  the  last  two  years,  and  remorselessly  turn  the 
blacks  out  without  any  regard  to  their  rights  in  equity,  their  feelings,  or  their  religious 
interests. 

I  may  state  here  that  there  is  such  a  general  expression  of  contempt  for  negro  religion, 
and  such  a  desire  to  repress  it,  if  possible,  that  it  seems  as  if  the  whites  thought  it  a  piece  of 
terrible  impertinence  for  the  blacks  to  worship  the  same  God  that  we  do.  The  white  people 
also  fear,  or  affect  to  fear,  that  opposition  to  their  plans,  and  even  insurrection,  will  be  hatched 
at  the  meetings  of  colored  people.  From  this  source  arise  the  occasional  reports  of  intended 
insurrections  ;  and  these  reports  are  intended,  often,  to  cause  the  prevention  of  meetings,  at 
which  the  colored  people  may  consult  together,  and  convey  information  important  to  them. 
I  have  the  honor  to  be,  general,  your  obedient  servant, 

JOSEPH  WARREN, 
Chaplain,  State  Superintendent  of  Education. 

Major-General  Carl  Schtjbz. 

Executive  Office,  Jackson,  fflss.,  August  19,  1865. 

Information  having  reached  me  that  parties  of  bad  men  have  banded  togeiher  in  different 
parts  of  the  State  for  the  purpose  of  robbing  and  plundering,  and  for  violatiug  the  law  in 
various  ways,  and  that  outrages  of  various  kiuds  are  being  perpetrated,  and  the  military 
authorities  of  the  United  States  being  insufficient  to  protect  the  people  throughout  the  entire 
State,  I  do  therefore  call  upon  the  people,  and  especially  on  such  as  are  liable  to  perform 
military  duty,  and  are  familiar  with  military  discipline,  to  organize  volunteer  companies  in 
each  county  in  the  State,  if  practicable,  at  least  one  company  of  cavalry  and  one  of  infantry, 
as  speedily  as  possible,  for  the  detection  of  criminals,  the  prevention  of  crime,  and  the  pre- 
servation of  good  order.  And  I  urge  upon  these  companies,  when  formed,  that  they  will  be 
vigilant  in  the  discharge  of  these  duties.  These  companies  will  be  organized  under  the  law 
in  relation  to  volunteer  companies  as  contained  in  the  Revised  Code,  and  the  amendment 
thereto,  passed  on  the  10th  of  February,  1860,  except  that  as  soon  as  the  proper  number 
shall  volunteer,  the  election  for  officers  may  take  place  immediately  and  without  further 
order,  and  commissions  will  be  issued  as  soon  as  returns  are  received,  and  the  election  may 
be  held  by  any  justice  of  the  peace.  I  most  earnestly  call  upon  the  young  men  of  the  State, 
who  have  so  distinguished  themselves  for  gallantry,  to  respond  promptly  to  this  call,  which 
is  made  in  behalf  of  a  suffering  people. 

It  will  be  the  duty,  as  I  hope  it  will  be  the  pleasure,  of  these  companies  to  pursue  and 
apprehend  all  offenders  against  law,  and  by  vigilance  to  prevent  crime,  to  aid  the  civil 
authorities,  and  to  contribute  all  in  their  power  to  the  restoration  of  good  order  in  the  com- 
munity. Arms  will  be  procured,  if  possible,  for  such  as  may  not  have  them,  but  I  would 
advise  an  immediate  organization  with  such  arms  as  can  be  procured. 

Given  under  my  hand  and  the  great  seal  of  State  affixed. 

W.  L.  SHARKEY, 
Provisional  Governor  of  Mississippi. 

By  the  Governor : 

'  John  H.  Echols,  Secretary  of  State. 


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